


My Family in Blood and Soul

by Moon_Rose (Moonrose91)



Series: The Bonds of Family [1]
Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Dori as a Woman, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I am working on it, I know I have too many Incompletes, I love the little Ri family, I should stay away from the kink meme, It keeps me being able to write, Literally in this case, Mommy Dori to Ori, Prompt Fill, This is gonna get epic in length
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 51,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moon_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/3651.html?thread=7215171#t7215171">Prompt Here</a>
</p><p> </p><p>What if the reason Dori is always mother-henning Ori was because she <i>is</i> his mother?</p><p>(Warnings in Chapter Titles)</p><p>(The chapters will probably be shorter because I am typing this up on comments first, then posting here.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tigers at Night

Dori was used to Nori slipping in and out of her life since he was old enough to pull being "of age" without warning. He would always just  _appear_  when he came back and hug Dori tightly, apologizing for disappearing. Apologizing for having to disappear again and then, one day, Dori would wake up, Nori gone as if he had never been there, if not for a bag of coin in her dresser drawer.  
  
It was during one of his disappearances, one of his early ones years ago, that Dori began to be courted by a sweet Dwarf by the name of Lingorm. Dori would be the first to admit that she had been far too attracted him. He was wonderful and made her happy, and filled her home with warmth in a way that wasn't when her last living relative was far away.  
  
She was young and naive, she knows that now.  
  
They had started laying together, in the most intimate of manners, when one day, she woke to a cold bed and some of the more valuable family artifacts, gone.  
  
The betrayal cut her deeply, even as she dressed and braided her hair. She then began to knit, until a knock, pounding and nearly sending the door off the hinges, had her scrambling for it, only to find the city guards there.  
  
The betrayal grew worse and she knew that Nori would find her.  
  
For the first time, Dori moved, moved everything, shame making her face burn and heartbreak making her want to cry, but she was on the next caravan  _out_ , away from the tiny little Dwarf village in this part of the mountains.  
  
Exile made her good at deciding what needed to be packed and what could be left behind.  
  
In the new place, she settled in a smaller place, hung up the knot of threads Nori made her in the tiny window, and focused on rebuilding her life.  
  
When she noticed the rounding of her stomach, she broke down crying again, in her tiny little house, for she was with child and the Dwarf who had she (still) loved long gone, abandoning her.  
  
Dori blamed her hormones, not her heartbreak, for her emotional frailty.  
  
And, like always, Nori returned.  
  
But this time, when he hugged her close, he didn't apologize. He paused, a hand resting on the bump, and then up at her face, her mournful, shamed, face, and he pulled her into a protective hug. "Do you want me to kill him? I can go kill him," he offered.  
  
And for the first time since Lingorm had disappeared, she laughed.


	2. Stupid Reasons for Tavern Brawls

Dori did not ask how Nori found them a bigger place.  
  
In all honesty, she did not want to know.  
  
She _knows_ she wouldn't like to know, and some days, Nori comes home in the early morning, with cuts and bruises and cracked knuckles. And she fusses over him, as she always does, and he would argue, as he always does, and try to fight her grip, though with no bite.  
  
Some days, he does not leave the house and keeps from the windows, particularly on the days that the city guards are out in force, which always made her level her best glare at him.  
  
Nori, as always, never apologized.  
  
If he had, Dori might have worried.  
  
For, as the pregnancy wore on, exhausting Dori, and often sending her to sitting down and knitting, Nori continued to be himself, to be  _Nori_.  
  
However, she would be blind to notice that Nori's bruises and cuts were worse on the days she managed to get out of the house, to do the needed shopping, because Nori couldn't to save his life.  
  
"Nori?" she questioned softly, on a night when her back was killing her and she could not sleep, and her feet refused to fit in her boots.  
  
On a night where Nori had come back with half his face a bloody, bruised, mess and is sitting next to Dori as she takes care of him.  
  
"What Dori?" Nori grumbled.  
  
"Are you fighting over my honor?"  
  
There is a stillness to Nori that comes with the question and Dori sighs softly, pressing her forehead to the non-injured side of his forehead. "Nori, you don't  _care_  about honor," she protested.  
  
"I don't care about  _mine_. I care about yours," Nori answered and Dori drew back slightly in surprise, to get away from the conversation and Nori reached up, grabbing a hold of the back Dori's head, keeping her from pulling away.  
  
"No you don't! You don't get to pull away, not this time!" Nori hissed, and his eyes burned with a rage that Dori had never seen before.  
  
"I don't care about my honor. I shucked it off like an old coat the minute I chose the lifestyle I did! But...I care about  _your_  honor and always have! And no two-bit thug is going to make comments about how you'd do well on your back, once you've popped the kid out, and  _no one_  is going to make snide comments about you being unwed and  _no one_  gets to say one Morgath-cursed thing about you that in any way maligns your honor! Because someone hurt you!" Nori paused and released his grip slightly, which Dori was thankful for, because it was starting to hurt.  
  
Nori took a few calming breaths and then stared at Dori in such  _pain_  that Dori wanted to do something, anything, until Nori continued his tirade, the rage simmering in the back of his eyes.  
  
But his grip remained gentle.  
  
"Someone courted you, and  _then_  someone  _abandoned_  you and you won't give me a name, or a description or  _anything_ , so I can't go out and  _exact_  the price of your honor  _from his skin_! Just...just...I can't do anything. You were hurt because I wasn't  _here_  and I can never...I can  _never_  forgive myself for that. Because someone entered our old home, and made you leave it, something you once swore never to do, and if I hadn't seen my knot in that tiny little window..."  
  
Nori trailed off as his hands slid from Dori's hair and Dori pulled him close, hugging him tightly as Nori cried into her shoulder, something he hadn't done since their mother died.  
  
And then Dori finished cleaning Nori up, quietly scolding him, and Nori helped her stand, because she really  _couldn't_  anymore on her own.  
  
Because they were family and they did these things for each other.  
  
Even if Nori did stupid things like get into bar brawls in seedy places for stupid reasons.


	3. Pounding on the Door

The next morning, Dori woke with a start as a knock like a sharp pounding came from her front door.  
  
Late in her pregnancy, the knocking also woke her babe up, which sent him kicking and rolling around in her. She shushed the babe gently, even as she knew, from the feeling of everything around her, that the pounding did not wake Nori.  
  
She let out a low groan of pain and exhaustion (she had only gotten to sleep an  _hour_  ago, because the baby had only gone to  _sleep_  an hour ago), the pounding (knocking was too kind) was growing louder as she fought her way up from her bed.  
  
Once standing, she had to lean on the wall, trembling slightly, exhaustion clinging to every limb before she managed to throw on her threadbare coat over her night dress.  
  
She shuffled weakly forward, panting quietly until she got to Nori's door, both relieved and terrified over the fact he was still asleep before she gripped the doorknob.  
  
"Please stop pounding on my door! I can only move so fast!" she shouted, which did not rouse Nori, though she used it to cover the sound of her shutting Nori's door.  
  
Only then did she make it to the front door, having to use their meager furnishings to get to the front door, her lower back screaming at her, feeling front heavy and her feet were  _definitely_  swollen.  
  
There was a pause in the pounding as Dori got to the door and she started back as a fist nearly slammed into her face.  
  
She actually started to fall back in an effort to get away from the fist, her balance fully thrown off, when someone caught her.  
  
Oh, the one pounding on her door had caught her and he was apologizing, gruffly as he helped her to one of her, three, chairs, along with another. And these weren't the guardsdwarves of the area, who leered at her and said they could give her protection in exchange for something she would not give, but guards from the merchant district.  
  
Dori now had a feeling some of the worse guards that got knifed in some dark alley, and found the next day, had been by Nori, and she turned her thoughts away from that.  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
That was the one who pounded on her door, asking her that, and she nodded, though swayed a bit at the nod. "Do you have a midwife we can call?" he asked and she noticed he was war-hardened, with tattoos that dictated what he had done in battle, what he had seen.  
  
"Does this look like Sapphire Way to you?" she snapped back and covered her face with a hand as she realized what had come out of her mouth.  
  
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and got a gentle hand pat on her arm.  
  
"S'all right," he growled out and she looked over at him, noticing his companion was supporting a  _fantastic_  bruise on his cheek, as if he got caught be Nori's elbow.  
  
"Oh, you're injured. I think I could have..." she began, trying to claw her way up, only to have heavy hands rest on her shoulders.  
  
"There's no need, ma'am," the warrior grumbled and she relaxed against her chair.  
  
"Oh, right. Who are you looking for down in the Pits?" she questioned and the warrior stood, back to being all business.  
  
"We're looking for a troublemaker by the name Nori," the warrior stated, his right hand man silent, though he was looking around constantly.

She was inclined to keep an eye on him.  
  
Dori had little left of her old life, from before Smaug, and she would like to keep what was left.  
  
"Oh?" she questioned, then frowned, though it was more over 'what had Nori done  _now_ ' frown over anything else.  
  
Anyone from  _home_  would have recognized it in seconds.  
  
These two?  
  
They probably just felt a bit guilty about pounding at her door at some Mahal-forsaken (oh, Nori was around too much; she was picking up on his blasphemous sayings) hour in the morning and getting her up.  
  
"Why?" she asked and the warrior frowned.  
  
"He attacked a merchant in one of the taverns near the Merchant District. He was badly injured when the merchant retaliated. We were wondering if you saw a auburn-haired, three-peaked, Dwarf with a bloody, and bruised, face," the Dwarf explained, even as Dori shook her head.  
  
"Maybe your husband would have?" the right-hand asked and she gave a soft snort.  
  
"There is no husband," Dori corrected softly and saw the head guard tense.  
  
She let out a low sigh and then glared at the pair of them. Dori then gripped the arms of her chair tightly and began to lever herself up, or try to. She fought her way up and, by the time she was standing, she was exhausted. "Please...leave," she panted out.  
  
"Of course," the warrior state and shooed out his right-hand, Dori following shakily and clinging to the door.  
  
The warrior paused and turned back to Dori. "I am Dwalin, son of Fundin. If you are ever in need of help, any guard should find me. I wish you a healthy babe," he stated and left, leaving Dori clinging to the door frame in shock, and then shutting the door, leaning heavily against it and feeling exhausted.  
  
She had to slam a hand over her mouth as two arms carefully encircled her to keep from screaming. "Sorry, sorry," Nori muttered and she turned to him.  
  
And then her legs gave out.


	4. The Womb is a Playground

Dori groaned lowly as she felt the baby, Ori, twisting around in her. "Stop doing that, I am trying to hear my nephew," Nori complained and she smacked his shoulder in response.  
  
"I should dump you out the window for what you put me through," Dori muttered, but didn't shove Nori off.  
  
Nori was sitting next to her on her bed, his head on her very, very, protruded bump. "Are you sure you don't have two?" Nori questioned and Dori let out a low groan of pain.  
  
"Please don't say things like that! Once you're off, I will barely be able to make enough to feed both me  _and_  Ori. If there's more than one in there, I'll be completely broken," Dori muttered and Nori lifted his head to look at her.  
  
"What makes you think I'm leaving you?" Nori demanded.  
  
Dori smiled knowingly and let her fingers twist through some of his loose strands of hair. "Because you're  _you_  Nori, and you wouldn't be you without your wandering ways. And I love them, and I am so glad you stayed during my pregnancy, more like a big brother than a little brother, but it would kill you to stay here, locked in one place," she stated and Nori gave her a smile.  
  
"Sister, don't you know?" Nori asked and Dori shook her head slightly.  
  
"I'm already tied here," he stated and Dori smacked him upside the head, which earned a laugh.  
  
"Besides, I need to be here to teach my sister-son how to pick pockets," he added.  
  
"Don't you  _dare_  Nori!" Dori hissed, but Nori only laughed before he began to chant some thief song at her bump.  
  
And she knew, no matter what she said, or did, she wouldn't be able to dissuade him.


	5. Welcome to the World (Birth)

Dori let out low whine of pain, suddenly thankful Nori was out. Every since her false contractions had started a week earlier, Nori had turned into a worrier. It was so against his usual personality that Dori wasn't sure how to handle him and she let out another groan of pain as she clung to the table.  
  
Normally, the false contractions eased when...  
  
"Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no," she panted out, making her way over to her bed, relaxing against the pillows, breathing as the Healer (one that, she was sure, took more coin for keeping quiet than any service) had told her would be needed when the time came and she scrabbled at her bedding, hoping Nori came home soon before she had to deliver this child herself.  
  
And she had no one to curse, no one to scream at, and she took a deep breath.  
  
She would not think of Lingorm, not right now, when she was in the middle of...  
  
Dori winced as she heard her door slam shut and she let out a sharp shout. "Oh, please, for the love of  _Mahal_  tell me you didn't get into trouble," she groaned out and focused on her breathing as she fought through the contractions, looking up to find Nori in her doorway, looking ready to curse.  
  
"Let me guess; you pissed off Dwalin son of Fundin," she retorted, and focused on breathing.  
  
"How do you even know his name?" Nori asked.  
  
"He came pounding on my door looking for you the day after I confronted you for your  _stupidity_  of defending my honor in seedy,  _sleazy_  taverns!" she retorted and then she focused on breathing.  
  
"I might have to kill you later Nori," Dori stated, even as she continued panting softly.  
  
Nori huffed a bit and then he was moving. "I did prepare for this you know," he stated.  
  
"Lovely. I'll get to tell my son his thieving Uncle delivered him instead of a midwife," she muttered.  
  
"Yes, yes you can. I shall want to have you thoroughly regale him with the tale of how I insured you both didn't die during the time it took me to get you someone who _can_  help," Nori retorted and Dori's reply was cut off by a short cry of agony.

* * *

 

Dori was panting softly, exhausted beyond measure, and fighting to find the strength to  _push_. Her cries and screams had brought an old Dwarf-woman named Fima, who had 'done this before', to their door. She had mostly forced her way in, demanding to help the 'poor lass' with her babe.

Nori, thankfully, delegated to other chores.

"Come along lass, you need to push!" Fima ordered and Dori shook her head slightly.

"Dori, if you don't push, I'll bring Ori to every gambling den west of Bree before the age of twenty!" Nori threatened.

"Do and I'll rip every hair from your head!" Dori snarled.

"Then push!" Nori snapped.

Somehow, that worked. She was pushing and there is more than just Dori's cries. Ori is there, and being cleaned off and Nori is kicked out so his sister can bond with her son.

Nori smiles contentedly as he avoids windows and lets Fima take care of everything.

And when she comes out, proclaiming Dori, though exhausted, healthy, and tells Nori all the things they need, he hands over a bag of coins. "Pleasure, as always, doing business with you Nori," she stated with a wink and was gone.

Crooks and thieves were all he knew, but he did his best.

And when he peeked back in at Dori, later, everything was clean and pretty. There was a soft knit blanket wrapped around the babe in a pillow cradle that Dori was, somehow, curled around.

Only then did Nori go and collect the crib he had...obtained, properly put together with all the needed things and he carefully settled it in Dori's room.

He'd wait for her to wake up and move Ori to it.

He knew better than to touch a newborn Dwarfling without his mother's permission.


	6. Lullaby of Home

Dori hummed a lullaby as she walked around, trying to get a softly crying Ori to settle down into sleep, thankful that Nori had "found" a sling to help her carry Ori, while trying to think of a True Name to give her baby boy.

 _Usually_  the Outsider Names were chosen by the Dwarf when they started to go out into the world because  _usually_  they were surrounded by trusted and loved ones, which allowed the use of their True Name in all things.

But, this wasn't a  _usual_  situation, with strangers on all sides and a thief for a brother. She continued to hum the song, carefully tracing one finger along Ori's cheek and smiling when he settled a bit at the touch, though he didn't try to latch onto her finger, meaning that he wasn't hungry.

And, as this was his tired cry, she hadn't thought he was, but he was refusing to settle down, showing a rare stubbornness in him that Dori  _knew_  was all Lingorm.

She smiled weakly at the thought of how, despite the fact that Lingorm would never know Ori, Ori would always have some piece of his father in him.

 _"Oh ro soon shall I see them;_  
_Oh he ro see them oh see them._  
_Oh ro soon shall I see them the_  
_mist covered mountains of home._  
  
_There shall I visit the place of my birth_  
_And they'll give me a welcome the warmest on earth_  
_All so loving and kind full of music and mirth,_  
_In the sweet sounding language of home..."_  she sang softly, letting the words weave their way through their home, slowly settling into the very walls.

Still walking around calmly, the words were automatic as she continued to ponder over what she could do to bring more money into the household, barely able to make it by even  _with_  Nori's help.

Her knitting was not selling nearly so well as it had during her pregnancy and, despite being 'learned', there was no place hiring. Or, at least, no place hiring  _her_.

There was still a stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock, despite the lack of females  _and_  the lack of children. She let out a low sigh and slowly settled into the chair she had moved to be by the fire as Ori finished settling into sleep.

Staring into the flames, she wondered what she could bear to sell when she heard Nori enter the house.

Relieved that he had not woken Ori, her eyes rose up to meet his and she hid her face in her hand. "What did you do?" she asked softly.

"I may, or may not, have almost got caught in a gambling den. I got these new marks from Dwalin," Nori answered and Dori let out a long sigh.

Ori shifted a little in his sleep and she made sure he was still asleep when she stared at Nori. "Nori, if Dwalin comes pounding on this door and wakes Ori up, I may have to kill you," she stated and Nori laughed, softly.

* * *

 

Nori was asleep when Dori rose the next morning. She made sure herself, and Ori, were fed. She carefully dressed him in clothes she had made in the softest cloth she could afford, before she bundled herself up.

Of  _course_  Ori had to be born in the wintertime.

Carefully drawing herself up in warmth, she found some small things that had more money than sentimental value, though she kept her mother's hair beads in their secret place. She wrote a note on paper she could spare for Nori, and slipped out of the house.

Until she could get a job, she would just have to part with more old treasures.

The only thing that kept her going out the door was thinking about Ori, who made soft baby sounds of contentment just as she started to falter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Dori sings a part of is called 'Mist Covered Mountains.' Flip if I could pass that up. I honestly don't know where it originated.


	7. Value of a Star

The coin Dori got for the pieces of jewelry was less than what she would have gotten if Nori had sold them to some black market place and more than what she would have gotten if she didn't know their value, but no jeweler she could sell them to would buy them at their value, though this one was a bit more honest than most.

In all, she did better than expected on the whole and could keep some of the more cherished pieces.

She had held tightly to Ori the entire time and when she was near the door, she heard the jeweler whisper to his partner, “Another unwed mother, down on her luck. She’ll have another little one before long, when all her other options run out.”

Dori flushed in shame and carefully slid her purse into the sling to be held tightly by Ori, smiling down at her little son, her little…

“I have your name, little one,” she whispered and Ori made soft baby sounds.

She hurried home to tell Nori of the name that had formed in her mind, glorious and bright as anything.

* * *

 

“Nori, up!” she demanded and Nori sighed heavily, even as he slowly sat up, eyeing her.

“Why are you dressed all warmly?” he muttered, but Dori ignored him as she smiled at him excitedly.

“Nori, I found Ori’s True Name!” she exclaimed and Nori woke up at that.

He knew the lack of a True Name had disturbed Dori far more than himself. He had always thought his True Name was rather silly (Kumathmizimaz, or in Westron tongue, Song of Jewel Origins or something equally ridiculous) and he was pretty sure that Dori had picked up on their mother, Riel’s, naming conventions. “All right, what is it Kurdinhmizimaz?” Nori grumped and Dori huffed as she carefully lay Ori down.

She cheerfully rubbed her baby boy’s stomach and he squirmed. “You, dear one, are Ûgmâlmizimaz, son of Kurdinhmizimaz, known to Outsiders as Ori son of Dori,” she stated and gently nuzzled Ori’s cheek.

Nori muttered, and mangled, the proper words of acceptance of the name, which made Dori smack him, but it was done.

Ori's True Name had been given.

Nori found it oddly fitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not an expert in Khuzdul. I use an online dictionary for Neo-Khuzdul to make the names. I try my best. I apologize if I horrifically demolished it.
> 
> Dori = Kurdinhmizimaz (Heart-Lady of Jewel Origins) 
> 
> Nori = Kumathmizimaz (Song of Jewel Origins)
> 
> Ori = Ûgmâlmizimaz (Greatest Star of Jewel Origins)


	8. The Disappeared-Reappearing Act

Dori was not surprised to wake one morning, when Ori was still young, to find a bag of coins in her drawer and a note of apology for leaving. Once again alone, she took care of Ori with all the love a mother can possibly have for her child.

Ori was a quiet child, all thoughtful eyes and quiet shifts. He kicked and chewed on his fist, and never cried unless he was hungry, or tired. He whined pitifully when cold, and whimpered when scared. She held him through his first winter, and third, and up to his sixth, all on her own, sacrificing her own comfort and desires as she moved them to a smaller place with a cheaper rent that was easier to keep warm.

It was mostly a open thing with half-walls that showed where 'rooms' were, such as a tiny kitchen. There was a 'room' in the back, but it was tiny and better suited as a storage closet than a room.

Dori had sold one of the chairs, leaving her with a slightly rickety table, and two chairs, a bookcase with scrolls and books that were near to falling apart, along with a large wooden trunk packed full (which had a false 'bottom' in the lid), Ori's cradle, and her bed.

As always, Nori's knot hung in her window.

She had less than before, but she didn't care.

She had Ori, and that made up for every other loss she had.

She smiled through Ori's first attempt to sit up, through his first steps, and fretted over his shoving away of food and refusal to say a word. She had begged, cajoled, and worried that something was wrong, but with no coin to spare for a Healer, she was unable to do anything.

In Ori's seventh winter, Nori returned with a frown, in time to hear Ori say his first word.

"Amad!"

Dori laughed and cheerfully lifted Ori into her arms, kissing him all over his face as Ori tried to tug lightly on her beard. Dori buried her nose into Ori's hair.

"Stop moving," Nori complained, but Dori waved her hand at him before she settled on her bed, wrapping her arms securely around her baby boy.

* * *

 Ori was napping in his 'cradle' of blankets on Dori's bed, arms wrapped tight around a knit  _cat_ , face buried into the loving creation made by Dori, most likely.

The cradle had, probably, been sold the minute Ori no longer needed it, so Nori did not question it being missing. Instead, he sat in the second chair as Dori began to cook up a small lunch, apologizing for not having a bed, and Nori let her.

Dori was in fussing mode, and Nori knew better than the question it.

Her being in fussing mode also allowed him to really  _look_  at the Dori's tiny home.

And he took in the cheap lamps that hung in strategic places, the one bed, the fact that Dori looked thinner than last time, the fact that, while Ori was obviously well fed, his mother was  _not_ , and the skeins of yarn on top of the big trunk.

"Dori?" Nori questioned and Dori looked up from where she was carrying the poor table over, the stew finished.

Nori felt the question stick in his throat as he saw the way Dori trembled faintly, at the way her thoughts seemed to pick up speed at the call of the name Nori always felt more comfortable with in regards to his big sister.

"What is it Nori?" she asked, concern flavoring every word as she carefully set the table back down on the ground, nowhere near the chairs.

"I can take care of that. I brought you things!" Nori stated, pulling his pack around to be in front of him and she snorted at him.

"They better not be things that'll get me arrested," she grumbled.

Nori smiled and thought about the Man who had a very familiar cloak clasp, despite the fact the sapphire had been missing from it, and who had been far too drunk to even realize it had been switched out for a cheap tin thing that didn't even look like the one Nori had switched it for.

Or even notice when the cloak slipped from his shoulders, the two-bit clasp not holding the thick thing, allowing Nori to get some cloth as well that night.

"Never," Nori responded and carefully pulled the cloak clasp out of one of his secret pockets in his pack.

Dori gasped and carefully took the silver cloak clasp designed to look like vines carefully entwined around with a flower (which had once been silver petals surrounding a sapphire, instead of just a silver flower) in the middle to hide how it held the cloak from Nori's hands.

It had been their mother's and Nori knew it as well as he knew Dori.

"How... _where_?" she asked, staring at Nori as he stood up to join her near the table.

"Merry Yule Dori," Nori simply answered and, carefully, tapped his forehead to hers.

And then he stepped around her to move the table, deciding he would have to do some item hunting tomorrow.

His sister's home was far too bare.

Later, after stew was eaten (by both), Nori slipped out and found out where Dori was working (as someone who  _threaded beads onto silk thread_  of all things!). He also found a few places he could fleece the regulars for a nice amount of coin, before he returned to the small home.

Only then did he give Ori the book of Dwarven Tales.

The boy's eyes light up and he nearly face planted in his eagerness to show Dori.

He gleamed and sparkled like the greatest star in the sky.

Yes, his True Name was  _very_  appropriate in Nori's opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ori never spoke because he never had a reason to. His mother always knew what he needed without him ever having to say a word. Then this new person appeared that looked vaguely familiar, and his mother was so happy to see him and he realized he would need to start talking.
> 
> I am figuring, developmentally, he's _roughly_ equivalent to a three year old.
> 
> Translation time!
> 
> Amad = Mother
> 
> Again, according to the dictionary I use. I do not claim to speak it fluently.


	9. Strings of Beads (Sexual Harassment)

Ori got used to having Uncle Nori around after a few days.

Mostly because it meant that his mother didn't have to shove coins he was sure they couldn't afford (he was young, not stupid) at the Dwarf at the door to her work and  _he_  didn't have to sit on the bench next to her, bored, as she sang counting games to him while she strung an unending number of beads onto silk threads, though occasionally she'd take a misshapen one and set it to the side, and, when no one was looking, carefully flick it down the table to distract him.

While that was fun, they didn't do it often.

His days, before Uncle Nori, consisted of this, mostly, so he learned a lot there too, despite being  _bored_.

Like, he learned that the Dwarf Amad shoved coins at was known as the 'Overseer' and he did  _not_  like Ori there.

The Overseer walked around, watching all the people working on the necklaces.

He always did this.

The Overseer also always leaned over his mother, when he got to her, and put his mouth very close to her ear, the one away from Ori, whispering things Ori couldn't hear that made Amad both pale, and flush with eyes that focused intensely on the beads.

Sometimes, the Overseer would do something out of Ori's sight that made his mother jump, but no one said, or did, anything to stop the Overseer.

But Ori knew, from the way his mother reacted and the way she pulled him closer to her as the Overseer walked away, that it was not something the Overseer  _should_  be doing.

That it was  _bad_.

He had asked once, when they were safe at home, all curled up in bed, why she went to work still when the Overseer was being bad.

She hadn't answered, only pulling him closer and burying her face into his head hair.

Ori thinks she cried and he didn't ask again.

It was the only time she never answered a question of his.

Now, with Uncle Nori being there, Ori spent his days staring intently at the front door, no matter what Uncle Nori did to get him to do anything else.

Okay, he worked on his runes and everything too. Their culture and such, but he would only do it if he faced the front door, fidgeting when his mother came later than she ever did when carrying him.

When she came home, he ran straight to her and she dropped down to cling to him tightly.

"Did you behave for Uncle Nori?" she asked warmly as she stood, clinging to him.

"Uh-huh," Ori answered.

"He wouldn't eat his greens," Uncle Nori stated, as he left.

"I don't like green food," Ori protested and Nori left at that, waving, while Dori scolded Ori lightly, even as Ori insisted that Uncle Nori had eaten the green food.

It continued like this for a week, with little variation (sometimes Uncle Nori coaxed him outside when there was some laughter, but Ori was too small to play with most of the other children) until Ori decided he had to ask something.

* * *

 

Ori didn't like the later time his mother was getting home at.

It plagued his mind, and it made him think about his unanswered question, and how his mother always picked him up when the gong rang, tying off the last of her strands of beads, laying it out, collecting her things and  _running_  out the door, without really running.

About how the Overseer would glare at bit, but always grab Amad's elbow and lean over, saying something that made her tremble a bit before saying 'goodnight' and leaving.

"Uncle Nori?" he called.

"Yes Ori?"

"If someone is being bad, why would you stay somewhere?"

Uncle Nori sat up a bit at that and stared at Ori. "What do you mean?" Uncle Nori asked.

Ori shifted in his seat on the floor, on top of the blankets Amad had laid out for him. "Well, the Overseer is bad, to Amad, and no one does anything, but he's bad. I know. Makes Amad pale all mad, but go red too. He's being bad, but Amad stays. And she never told me  _why_ ," Ori explained, Uncle Nori seemed to get all pale.

Ori scooted away a bit, and that seemed to calm him down.

"Ori, Ori, I'm not mad at you. Just...come here," Uncle Nori stated and Ori hesitated before he went over.

Uncle Nori picked him up and wrapped arms around him. "Promise to never tell your mother?" he asked.

"Promise," Ori stated.

Uncle Nori nodded a bit and sighed.

For a while, Uncle Nori looked lost. Like he didn't know what to say. He ran a comforting hand over Ori's hair, then sighed softly and gently pressed his forehead to Ori's.

"Your mother loves us very much. And sometimes, to help those we love very much, we do things that we do not like, things that hurt, or things that put us near people who are bad. And there is little we can do. It is a fact of life I am sure your mother is going to kill me over if she ever learns I told you," Uncle Nori explained and Ori frowned.

"If it is about the coins, why does Amad stay? There must be other places," Ori protested and Uncle Nori hugged him.

"Not for your mother, Ori," he whispered.

"But why?" Ori asked, frustrated and scared.

Nori let out a low sigh and seemed to be fighting a battle inside. "She's going to kill me," he muttered and then he was focused on Ori.

Ori looked up at him in return, feeling that focus on him, and carefully reached up to hold Uncle' Nori's beard.

Uncle Nori let him.

"Because, Ori...because, your father tricked your mother. He played being good, but was really bad. So, it is hard for your mother to get coins elsewhere. I'll...I'll explain it better when you are older, okay?" Uncle Nori explained softly.

Ori stared. "Promise?" he demanded.

And Uncle Nori hugged him. "Promise," Uncle Nori answered.

When Uncle Nori released him, Ori returned to his blankets and continued with writing his runes, legibly.

Amad would scold him if they weren't.

That night, when Ori hugged his mother tight, he found a tear in her dress.

He did not ask.

For the first time, Ori did not want to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dori being sexual harassed at work comes from listening to 'Les Mis' and thinking about how, no matter how balanced or open a society is...there are _always_ going to be those sort of people.
> 
> _Always._
> 
> Also, for any wondering why Dori doesn't just punch the Overseer...
> 
> This was the _only_ place that would hire her.
> 
> Punching the Overseer, no matter how much she may want to, is not the best way to remain in her job. And she has to keep food in Ori's tummy and a roof over his head, and if she has to put up with the Overseer to insure that she can keep doing that, she will.


	10. Talks in the Night (Discussed Sexual Harassment and Assault, and Mentioned Murder)

Nori had to search a bit, in the dark of the night, for the dress that Dori had worn that day for work, before he found it.

He had seen Ori tense when he hugged his mother, which meant that something was  _wrong_. He had seen the way Dori trembled, the way she desperately clung to Ori, even as they went through their dance they usually did as Nori stepped out for the night.

To gamble or steal or to see if he could rile up the guards.

Tonight, however, he had gone with the purpose to gather information he  _should have_  gathered on his first day.  
  
Coin exchanged hands as he learned a bit more about the place Dori worked at. Learned about the Overseer and what he  _did_  learn had Nori itching for his knife and just slitting the Dwarf's throat.

He got his kicks by having power over those who relied on his good graces to stay in their jobs. He only went after those that could not fight back, those that he could get away with breaking every protocol in the book.

Dori was not the first.

She was just the only one that stayed.

He had found the strongest person in all of the Blue Mountains who couldn't fight back.

Not wouldn't.

 _Couldn't_.

It angered Nori and, when he asked why no one else had ever  _said_  anything, his informants all said the same thing.

" _They're the ones that can't risk losing their jobs. Either because they've got a husband to bail out of jail, or a brother. Some have mouths to feed. The one he's got now...she's an unwed mother with a babe. She was already labeled going in, getting paid less than the rest. She won't open her mouth and the others? The others are probably just happy he's looking at someone else now...at best."_

Nori had wanted to hiss and snarl. Wanted to grab someone and shake them, and demand to know why a Dwarf lass, after being  _abandoned in the final stages of courting_ , had to pay for that with every breath she took.

But he couldn't, because that would reveal too much, and so he went to the easiest gambling den and made back three times as much as he had spent in bribes and knowledge before he returned.

Returned through back ways and alleys, dodging guards and those who would like to slit his throat or purse (or both), until he was safe in Dori's home.

And searching for the dress.

Quietly.

He had glanced up periodically to see that Dori was still curled around Ori, protective and loving in motherhood as she was in all other things. He remembers her with the ponies they had, in their travelling days, the perfect caretaker for them when even their mother had floundered.

Their mother was, in Nori's opinion, perfect in all things and he was proud to call himself a son of Riel, even if that marked him as a son born out of wedlock.

But, unlike Dori, she had known she would never marry, had been content to be sneered at.

Also, unlike Dori, their father had taken care of Riel and them.

Even in exile.

Till he died, but Riel hadn't settled anywhere near that family.

Saying the father died and not having to lie allowed her to get good paying jobs, while everyone in the Blue Mountains knew, for a fact, that Dori had never been married.

She had never hidden it, and Dori would never lie (Nori would have happily lied for his sister, but she wouldn't allow it).

Now, with this dress in his hands, he knows how it was ripped. He can feel it.

Someone had  _grabbed_  where skirt met bodice and tugged roughly, probably to pull her back, maybe into a wall, he didn't know.

But someone had grabbed his sister and  _touched her_  in a way they shouldn't. Had said something they shouldn't have, mostly likely as well.

"Nori?" a voice asked, thick with sleep and he looked up to find Dori sitting up.

"Who tore your dress Dori?" he asked softly and she stilled, before glancing worriedly down at Ori.

She carefully tucked the blankets around Ori and carefully got out of bed. Ori whined a bit, but did not waken, not when Dori hummed softly an old tune that Nori knew their mother had sung.

She then pulled her coat around her and let out a low sigh. "None of your concern," she hissed softly.

"It is bloody well my concern! I know what type of movement tears this skirt! I've slit the throats of Men who have created the tears all the way through!  _This_  is caused by someone grabbing your skirt and  _tugging_  at it!  _This_  is caused by someone pushing their way into your space that no one has a right to do without your express permission!" Nori whispered.

Dori glanced worriedly over at Ori, but he was still asleep, if his quiet snores were anything to go off of.

"It is  _nothing_. Nori,  _please_ ," she begged softly and Nori let out a pained sigh.

"Dori, this isn't  _nothing_ ," Nori protested.

"Well, it is something I can handle! Besides, he never..." Dori began to argue, when she silenced herself.

"Never  _what_  Dori? Never tore at your skirts?" Nori hissed.

Dori glared and looked about ready to punch him before she deflated. "I hate it! I hate it with every fiber of my being! He whispers things in my ear that make me feel like _slime_  and soot from dragon-fire, and he sometimes pinches my seat or taps me there, and I  _loathe_  it and I  _loathe_  him, and I just want to stand up and rip him limb from limb but I  _can't_  because if I do, I'll lose more than just my job, I'll lose Ori too, and if that happens...if that happens, I'll break Nori," Dori snapped and she slowly began to sink down, as if a mountain had suddenly been dropped on her shoulder.

Nori quickly caught her and helped her to a chair that faced the bed.

Dori's eyes immediately locked onto where Ori was sleeping.

"Ori is the only reason I can face him most days, and what I hate most is that he has to sit  _right there_  while that sick, twisted,  _thing_  does that to me, and Ori is  _smart_! He knows that it isn't right, thank Mahal, but...if I don't pass over coins so the Overseer says nothing about Ori being there, and if I don't  _work_ , I'll be unable to take care of him," she whispered, staring at Ori with all the love she had.

Nori thought it was a miracle she could still love her own brother.

"Go someplace else," Nori urged softly.

" _Where_  Nori? You think I am working there for the  _pay_? For the  _company_?" she asked, staring up at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Nori...nowhere else  _would_  hire me. They said...they said I would set a bad example," Dori answered.

Nori's brain halted at that. And then he hugged her tightly as he plotted how, exactly, to ensure that the dragon in Dwarf skin never touched his sister again.


	11. Destroying a Dragon in Dwarf's Skin (Near Death)

Nori starts on his work to permanently remove the Overseer (Brik) from Dori’s life by discovering if he has any _other_ vices.

He smirks at the discovery of the Overseer's enjoyment of drinking too much and, once really drunk, gambling with far too many disreputable people around. This tidbit, whispered in the right ears, makes the Overseer prey to every single skin-flint in the taverns the Overseer likes to go to. He’s running out of coin faster, but Nori already knows that he’s made a misstep in the way that Dori comes home, and hides the fact he knows the source of the Overseer’s growing anger and, thus, growing…harassment seems too much like an understatement, but Nori has already set it in motion and can do nothing to change the course.

He couldn’t just _stop_ his plans, and just hoped that at the end of it all, Dori could forgive him.

If she ever found out he was at the root of the _escalation_ of the problem.

Nori huffed a bit at the realization he did not plan for all contingencies and is already slipping the word out.

The Overseer is dogged in his every step.

Any winnings he manages to garner from the cut-throats Nori can sit ‘comfortably’ with is quickly lost on the stumbling walk home or, rarely, on the simple walk home.

The Overseer, much to Nori’s glee, has a gambling itch that just needs scratching.

Continues this way, and Nori thinks he can have some of the more… _impatient_ lenders and brokers stepping into the Overseer’s path. That takes less time than Nori had planned for.

It also results in the first bruise on Dori’s arm.

Ori refuses to let her go the day after, and Nori, who has lived a guilt-free life, omitting the fact he left his sister alone long enough for someone to take advantage of her, feels that hot, twisting, bile in the back of his throat is from the fact he’s put his sister in danger.

More so than before and he knows, like he knows an easy mark, that it is all his fault.

But he presses on, because he thinks of his sister’s face when she flat out tells him that no one else will hire her. When she tells him that no one wants her, because she is an unwed mother, and she _won’t_ (or can’t) tell them about being abandoned in the final stages of courting.

Nori wonders if that would make it so they would stop punishing her, if they know.

But Nori just sighs and sets those thoughts to the side as he starts to pull every string he has to get the Overseer into some minor trouble, bringing him, slowly but surely, onto the radar of the city-guards.

The city guards, who take far more notice, far too quickly, and it almost has Nori backing off, until he realizes if he does, he won’t be able to ensure anything.

It is nearly summer in the Blue Mountains when Nori hits his first stumble that causes him to ease off on setting the Overseer for a fall.

Namely, Dwalin, son of Fundin, one of the more powerful city-guards, supposedly right-hand to an exiled king or something equally ridiculous, and until Nori claps eyes on the exiled king himself, he’s not inclined to believe it.

But, in the meantime, Dwalin has started taking notice of the sudden decline of a seemingly respectable Dwarf and is sniffing around.

Sniffing around to the point that he’s greeting Dori on the street politely when he sees her (if the whispers have even a smidgen of truth to them about _that_ ) and getting in the way of completely destroying the Overseer.

Nori huffs and stews, and focuses on teaching Ori how to balance on impossibly thin ledges.

Dori pitches a fit, and it soothes Nori’s nerves, even as Ori tries to giggle, but just ends up burying his head into Dori’s shoulder.

Nori doesn’t want to know what Ori sees that he missed.

He doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop himself from slitting the Overseer’s throat, if that is true.

A week after this development, Dori comes home late. Ori is a nervous wreck and when Dori comes home, it is with her spine steel and looking beyond angry. She balances a giggling Ori on her hip and turns to Nori. “You will not _believe_ what happened to me today!” she exclaimed, sounding angry and awed near breathless, all at once.

“What?” Nori pushes.

“The Overseer, that dragon in Dwarf’s skin, had the _gall_ to push his luck too far! He’s…” Dori begins to exclaim and then pauses, fighting to get her language under control before she sits down, Ori on her lap, and pins her hands over his ears.

“He’s got a dragon’s hoard of luck! I already had hit him once in the rib cage, going ‘Mahal will aid me in finding another job, he won’t let my babe starve’, and suddenly _Dwalin_ appears out of nowhere and hauls the thing off me and _slams_ his metal covered fist into his jaw! It tore up his cheek! And then he ordered the thing dragged down and asked if I was all right! The nerve of him! Stepping right in, as if I was some swooning maiden in some _tale_!” Dori grumbled and dropped her hands from Ori’s ears.

“Amad, Amad, Uncle Nori showed me how to do something today!” Ori stated and Nori is already slipping out.

It seems that Dwalin is good for something after all.

And when Dori is at the doorway not even five seconds later, shouting grave and horrible things at his back, Nori is already thinking of who is going to end up in the cells near the Overseer this night.

The next morning, Nori is gone once more, and the Overseer is found, beaten to near death, and his cellmate, who gave a false name, has disappeared from the cells of the city.

Dori sighs over the bag of coins, but cradles Ori, who pouts over having to return to work with his mother.

At the same time Dori discovers the bag of coin, Dwalin wonders how Nori escaped, _again_ , from the Blue Mountains.

This time, instead of precious jewels, it is with blood on his hands.


	12. Interlude (Or Why Dori is Pessimist)

It took a week for a new Overseer to enter Dori's life.

He was no worse than the last, and barely better. While he didn't touch her and she did not have to give up coins so Ori could stay by her side while she worked (an executive decision from the boss, who normally had no need to interact with his employees and seemed to dislike doing so), the new Overseer still whispered in her ear.

He made her skin crawl, just like the last.

And Ori clung to her side as she softly sang the Counting Songs, Ori's soft voice joining hers as time wore on, or continuing the song when her voice petered out as the poisoned words left the Overseer's lips and dripped into her ear.

In those moments, when she pales with rage and flushes with shame, she wonders if she should have kept to the old town and had Ori there, before moving. If she should have come with a babe in her arms and tears in her eyes and let people assume what they will. If doing that would have given them better chance at life, but the past is in the past and there's nothing she can do to change her choices.

(Distantly, she thinks nothing would have changed and she's not sure how to feel about that.)

Life goes on as it had before Nori had dropped back in, and Dori smiles over her son worriedly as he begins to start 'fussing.'

As a normally quiet, and pleasant, child, Ori’s fidgetiness and surliness were far more pronounced than any other children his age and this meant only one thing.

The Fussing Years had started.

They hit all Dwarflings, sooner or later, and could last anywhere from a couple of years to a couple of decades.

Dori was prepared for it, having been there for Nori’s.

They were, as the name suggested, a period of fussiness and…well, it would be more accurate to call them the Rebelling Years. They fought on the smallest things, kept trying to push boundaries and earlier years could have some horrific temper tantrums, but as a whole, they were a time of discovery, of helping a young stripling grow into the Dwarf they would become.

Usually the Dwarves acting as parent _s_ helped raise the child, sharing the burden of the dwarfling’s sudden mood changes and fearsome temper.

And Dori, alone (and dreading finding someone to watch Ori while she was at work when the Fussing Years really set in) could only look to that time with dread.

Some dwarflings (like herself) had only fussed in that they argued, fought, and threw a temper tantrum or two, ending after a couple of years.

Or, they could be like Nori and fight and scream and cause their mother unending hardship until she broke down sobbing in a corner because the father wasn’t around to help, the stress of dealing with a fiery-tempered child _alone_ nearly crushing her, for nearly ten years, and even _then_ , Dori still isn’t sure Nori’s ‘Fussing Years’ ever _stopped_.

Dori decided not to worry about it and sighed fondly over Ori refusing to eat green food, something he _always_ fussed about, her son allowing her to carefully brush out Ori’s fine baby-beard with only slightly callused fingers, Ori giggling a bit at the tug.

As they slowly made their way to Ori’s eighth birthday, the fidgeting began, with the sighing and foot kicking. However, instead of getting irritated, those that shared a bench with Dori smiled indulgently at him and, for once, they chatted to (with, even) Dori, acting as if she were one of them, instead of ignoring her.

She should have known it wouldn’t last.

A month after her co-workers began to chat politely with her, Dori was called up into her employer’s office.

She was given a month’s pay and told that she would have to find another job.

Dori left quickly, after being insanely polite, Ori clinging to her in confusion. “Amad?” Ori called fearfully.

“Everything’s going to be fine, dear one, I promise,” Dori answered calmly, even smiling at Ori, which had him smiling in return, even as she internally panicked, wondering what she could do _now_.

She was running out of options and that never ended well for anyone.


	13. Temper Tantrums

Dori had started searching for a new job the moment she had been fired, starting in the higher districts and nicer places, before she turned her eyes closer to home.

It made her feel sick, especially when she had to drag a squirming, irritated, Ori with her, his Fussing Years growing worse with every passing day that was mostly just stew and day old bread for every meal, with whatever she could manage to whip up with the food she bought, stretching what coins they had left to the point of breaking.

She sold what she could, parting with things that made her heart break, though she refused to give up her mother's beads, despite knowing that they sell the best.

When she wasn’t our searching for a job, she taught Ori of their history, of Erebor, though she did not sing the song that every one of the exiled knew better than their own heartbeats, not yet.

She taught him of Mirkwood, and how the Elves betrayed them (but told him, softly and in a low voice, with a promise to never tell, that not  _all_ Elves were bad, just those). She taught her Ori everything she could, as she fixed her clothes and knitted him warmer things, coming to the realization that no one was ever going to buy her knitted works again, only willing to help her while she was pregnant.

Dori is getting desperate, however, and she knows that is a bad place to be.

Desperate Dwarves make stupid choices.

* * *

Dori closed her eyes in shame before Ori’s fussing whine propelled her forward into _The Black Sword_ , a tavern that was open all day and did the least amount business around midday, most of the ‘regulars’ coming at night.

She ignored the whistles, few though they were, and, who she hoped was the owner of the establishment was, looked over. “What can I do fer ya today, Mother?” he greeted politely.

“Are you hiring?” she inquired softly and he started slightly.

“Bor, take over fer a bit,” he called and gave a nod.

“How about a cup of tea, Mother?” he asked and Dori gave a polite smile, following his lead, even as Ori kicked and whined to be put down.

* * *

Tavor was hesitant to give her the job, but ironically because he just didn’t want to see her being hooted and hollered at. “They’re not the gentlest sort, my customers,” he warned.

“Mister Tavor, at my last job, the first Overseer liked to pinch my seat, whisper in my ear, and when I did not take my son with me to work, pushed every boundary to the point he was hauled away to the cells. And that was at my snapping point, where I cracked his ribs. I think I can handle it,” she answered and Tavor had agreed.

And given her the job.

It didn’t have the best pay, and she would be serving food and ale (and if she did any _other_ type of serving, she would find herself out the door faster than she could blink), and cleaning off tables.

She would have to dress pretty, if she could, and work would start that evening.

Through it all, Tavor promised her that someone would watch her son for her while she worked, and understood that the Fussing Years were starting.

Despite it being in a seedy tavern that was made her feel like she was bathing in the soot of dragon’s fire, and probably held worse characters than Nori, and _definitely_ expose Ori to things she didn’t want to expose him to, it _would_ feed him.

And that made it all worth it.

* * *

Dori resisted the urge to let out a tired sigh as Ori threw a temper tantrum in the middle of the market, screaming about the fact that she would not take him the toymaker’s stall, a new addition that Dori had hoped Ori wouldn’t notice.

And the only reason she didn’t just leave him screaming in the middle of the street was because there was no one to keep an eye on him. Dori remembers her mother asking Dori to keep a quiet eye on Nori while he screamed himself hoarse and then walked off.

That would usually get Nori running after her, hiccupping and crying for her to come back, the promise to behave falling easily from his lips, but never kept long.

But, Dori has no one, and as she barters for a loaf of bread from the baker, she ignores Ori’s screaming and thrashing at her feet.

So do most others, but unlike the others, once she sets her bread into her basket, she hikes Ori up under her arm, away from the basket so a booted foot does not upset it, and heads to the next stall.

On the bright side, Ori is just doing wordless screaming. She does not hesitate, however, to drop the basket on the dried fruit merchant’s wooden stall and snapped her hand out, twisting the arm up of the slight Dwarf who tried to steal her purse, too used to Nori using her for _practice_ to let some stranger do it.

His arm is twisted horribly in her grip and she realizes she’ll have to put a screaming, temper tantrum throwing, Ori down if she wants to retrieve her purse, which she does with some reluctance and he screams up at her before she yanks her purse from the thief’s hand, releasing him once she’s done so, a headache starting to build from all the screaming.

She carefully hauls Ori back up under her arm and smiles at the merchant politely. “I heard you had dried strawberries,” Dori stated, acting like she hadn’t nearly broken a thief’s arm.

The Dwarf nodded and Dori smiled brightly, soon haggling out a price, surprised when she got twice as many as she asked for. When she opened her mouth to protest, he merely shoved the basket back at her and focused entirely on another customer.

Dori sighed, but took it, hoping he didn’t scream thief and get her thrown into a cell.

Ori had, at least, stopped screaming, hiccupping and whining instead. She shifted him so he was balanced on her hip and resisted the urge to sigh when he kicked her, on purpose.

She still needed to finish her shopping and…

Mahal curse it.

She was going to have to walk past the toymaker’s stall.

_Thank you, Maker, for giving me this test of patience today._

Dori hoped Mahal would forgive her for the obvious sarcasm. With steel in her spine, she began her journey, hoping that Ori just wouldn’t see the stall.

Those hopes were dashed as Ori began to twist and squeal excitedly, trying to get out of her arms to go to the stall. Dori sighed now, and she tightened her grip on him. “Ori, no. First of all, you have not been behaving! Second of all, we don’t…we don’t have the money for a toy, dear one. I’m sorry, I truly am, but maybe next time,” she stated, trying to get Ori to calm down, but he was in a full blown tantrum and she had a feeling some small bruises would be showing up later.

He would not listen to reason and Dori resisted the urge to sigh once more.

And then Ori screeched out, “I _hate_ you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! You never do _anything_ right!”

Dori, were she a lesser Dwarf, would have dropped Ori in pain. She wondered if the pain exploding through her heart was what it would feel like to get stabbed.

By now, Ori is a hiccupping, sobbing, mess on her shoulder, still whining out about how he hates her.

She is stone, for a moment, and then she is moving, realizing that it is a miracle that she didn’t drop her basket, and she quickly leaves the marketplace, heading back to her home.

* * *

Ori is napping when Dori breaks down in tears, remembering how her reddish-blonde haired boy shoved her away when she tried to give him a kiss, still whining about how he hated her. About how she was cruel and mean and never did anything right, and she knows, _she knows_ , that this is just the Fussing Years.

But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That hurt my heart to write.
> 
> All of it.


	14. Smoke and Tears

It took a few weeks of working for Dori to get into the swing of things, to relax at the shouts and whistles.

It took her a few weeks to realize that they were treating her like she was one of them, that they were teasing her as they would tease one of their friends. They never touched her, except on the hands to drop to their knees and beg that she lower herself, obviously one of their Maker’s Chosen, to shine in their house like a great jewel.

The first time it had happened, the automatic reaction had been her teasing him back, before she lifted her hands out of his and, with a shove of her foot, sent the miner sprawling back, which earned laughter from his compatriots.

Later, Tavor had laughed heartily over it while they cleaned up the tavern to close it for the night, while she had blushed in embarrassment.

But, of all the miners and gamblers and _others_ of the Pits, it was Tavor that got her to relax the most.

He was a good sort of Dwarf, for all that he was the top fox in the den of thieves.

She saw the knots in his clothes and the smile on his face, and the nod to those who wore similar knots somewhere on their person. She recognized the knot Nori had hung in her window over the door to _The Black Sword_.

She was not stupid.

She just pretended she didn’t notice the knots of thread and metal everywhere.

Life…life was good.

Dori just wished that Ori would stop screaming about how much he hated her.

* * *

Smoke curled through the air as Dori made her way through the tables, batting hands away with little of her true strength, and delivered ale and food to gamblers and miners alike. Sometimes she would duck into the kitchen to check on Ori, who had fallen asleep at some point, before she headed back out, smiling brightly. However, despite the whistles and calls, and ridiculous proposals of marriage...Dori didn't mind them.

Maybe because in this den of thieves, she felt like she belonged.

It made her want to crawl out of her skin, because she _didn’t_ , not really, but at the same time, she did, and she knew it.

So did they.

She batted a hand away from her tray. “Enough of that Droeur! Continue this way and I’ll be hauling you out of some gutter on my way home!” she scolded and his tablemates laughed at the blunt refusal to let the gray-haired miner have more ale.

“We should call you Mother Dori, instead of Miss Dori,” Droeur’s brother, Hameur stated.

She snorted and gently smacked him upside the head. “Do and your brother will have to pry me off you as I attempt to rip every hair from your pretty head. And _then_ how will you attract that lad you’ve been mooning over?” she retorted.

The miners all laughed at how red the dark-haired dwarf turned and she moved on.

The next night, after having to _fight_ Ori to let her go (and double checking that he wasn’t sick), even as he screamed and told her he hated her (his new favorite sentence that, no matter how often he used it, still cut her deeply), when she walked out of the kitchen, she was greeted, boisterously, with a chorus of, “Mother Dori!”

She should have known that the nickname, spoken in jest, would spread like fire to dead grass. “Tavor, you’re going to lose all your regulars,” she warned.

The Dwarf only laughed.

* * *

The Fussing got worse as Ori’s ninth birthday approached.

He argues with her all the time, and he screams for things she cannot give him. He shouts and cries himself hoarse, as if he’s trying to behave as badly as he can, as often as he can, in the span of a day, whining about how he wants his own bed and his own room.

About how much hates her.

As if she could ever forget about that.

She’s stopped humming as she helped Tavor clean up before they closed the tavern up for the night, though lullabies were still sung when Ori couldn’t sleep in the back room where he was watched by the cook’s assistant.

But it wore Dori down, so used to her baby boy before the Fussing Years started, who was sweet and hugged her and said he loved her every day.

And it all came to a head on Dori’s day off.

* * *

“I want to go to the toy stall,” Ori pouted.

Dori resisted the urge to sigh tiredly.

She hadn’t slept well, Ori’s mood worse last night to the point that had even Tavor frowning, and she lowered her knitting to where Ori was scowling, abandoning books, papers, and quills to scowl.

“No, Ûgmâlmizimaz. You haven’t behaved,” she responded tiredly.

She winced as Ori let out a short shout and glared. “I hate you!” he screamed, as he always did when she denied him some _reward_.

Normally, she just continued with what she did.

Normally, she pretended it didn’t hurt.

Normally, with every “I hate you,” that spewed forth from Ori’s lips, she answered, “I love you, Ori.”

This time, however, she felt tears begin to spill from eyes.

This time, her knitting slipped from numb fingers and hit the ground, some stitches coming undone.

This time, she could barely choke out, “I love you, Ori,” as her shoulders began to shake from suppressed sobs.

“Amad?” Ori called, his voice sounding a little rough as Dori covered her mouth, trying to keep the sobs in.

It didn’t work, however, as soon she was sobbing loudly, curled over as she tried to muffle them. “Amad, why are you crying?” Ori asked, starting to sound panicked, and she just cried a little harder as Ori’s hands began to fist into her skirts.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean any of it! I’m sorry Amad! Please, please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” Ori began to beg, scrambling into her lap.

She latched onto him instantly, burying her head into his hair as he clung to her tightly, apologizing over and over again, his own small sobs joining hers.

It took some time before she got herself under control and carefully pulled back, wiping her face off with the heel of her hand. Ori had buried himself into her shoulder and she pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

And for the first time in almost a year, Ori said, softly, “I love you, Amad.”

“I love you too, Ûgmâlmizimaz. More than the Arkenstone of Erebor,” she responded in a shaking voice.

They stayed like that for a long time, Dori humming Ori’s lullaby all the while.


	15. Long Long Ago

"He's been quiet," Mesi, the cook's assistant with his hair and beard like freshly spilled blood, stated as Dori slipped into the kitchen.

Dori let out a low sigh and pushed her hand into her hair before she carefully crossed over to where her now nine year old boy was curled up on the cot set up in a warm corner of the kitchen, smiling gently down at him. "Ori, darling, are you not feeling well?" she asked gently, running a hand over his back.

She sighed as he shook his head, obviously tired and she carefully turned him over. "Come now, dear one, what's wrong?" she asked gently.

"I was bad. I yelled at you earlier," he whispered and sniffled a little before burying his head into his sweater sleeves.

Dori hummed a bit before she carefully collected him up into her lap and wrapping her arms around him. "Yes. But you apologized, and all is forgiven," she answered softly, carefully combing out his wispy beard.

He sniffled a bit and buried his head into her shoulder before whining a bit. "You smell icky," he complained.

"That's because people are smoking out there," she responded comfortingly.

Ori kicked his feet a bit and whined lowly. "I don't like you working here," he stated.

"Oh? Why?"

"Because I don't get to see you most of the time. And I don't get to fall asleep at home. And you're tense when walking through the streets."

Dori let out a low chuckle and pressed a kiss to his head. "Oh, Ori," she responded softly and rubbed his back comfortingly.

"Baby...do you understand I have to work here? That I can't work at the old place?" Dori asked.

"Yes. But why...why couldn't you be somewhere  _like_ the old place, but without Overseers?"

More feet kicking accompinied the question and Dori smiled a bit. She ran her fingers through his mess of hair, realizing she was going to need to get something so she could start braiding his hair. She shifted Ori a bit on her lap, and glanced up when Tavor peeked his head in. She gave an apologetic smile, but he waved his hand at her before slipping back out. "No, I'm sorry Ori, but I can't," Dori answered.

"Why?" Ori whined.

Dori resisted the urge to sigh. "Because, dear one, there's...other Dwarves generally don't like me," she responded softly.

"Why?"

Dori smiled and rocked him a bit. "I'm a bit odd, is all. Do you want me to sing you to sleep?"

"Yes. But not lullaby. The one you hum when cleaning," Ori demanded.

Dori chuckled lowly and hummed softly before she began to sing. _"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, long, long ago, long, long ago. Sing me the songs I delighted to hear, long, long ago, long ago. Now you are come all my grief is removed, let me forget that so long you have roved. Let me believe that you love as you loved, long, long ago, long ago..."_ she began to sing softly, smiling as Ori snuffled, slowly slipping into sleep.

Once he was asleep, Dori slowly stood up and gently tucked him in.

"My mam never hid the fact they hated her because she had me out of wedlock," Mesi stated.

"Ori has the tendancy to figure things out on his own. If he asks, I'll tell him. If he doesn't...then I won't," Dori responded with the tiniest of shrugs.

Mesi gave a nod. And then Dori was hefting up the tray of food to hand out. She slipped out the kitchen door and let out a startled laugh as one of the regulars, Harmem, with little metal knots like charms hanging from his braids, wrapped an arm around her waist and carefully spun her around, making sure the tray didn't spill.

The nimbleness had her thinking that he could probably lift all manner of things from anyone he so chose, even Nori. "Harmem! Release me this instant!" she demanded and he laughed, before he carefully spun her away and bowed lowly, and only partially teasingly.

"Mother Dori, you are looking prettier than all the jewels under the mountain!” Harmem greeted as he stood up normally.

“You are a flatter. Has that actually managed to land you that lass you have chattered over for the past month, or did she take one of her pies and shove it into your face?” she inquired and Harmem laughed brightly, settling on his feet, hands on his hips, reminding her sharply of some dark hero in those silly books that her mother had once loved so much.

 _Romance_ , she called it.

Dori called it nonsense.

It didn’t help his hair was the deep black of the darkest mines, matching his eyes that almost seemed to gleam with hidden mischief. “She slammed the pie right in my face. Of course, that might have been because I was trying to slip it from her windowsill,” he answered, letting his thumb run along the side of his slightly misshapen nose.

“Of course you were. Because _that_ is the perfect way to get her to notice you,” Dori retorted, even as she headed for the table.

“Ah, but she did notice me!” Harmem argued and she shook her head as she settled the tray on the edge of the table that held the usual miners.

“Droeur,” she greeted with a smile, and immediately frowned, then sighed.

“Droeur, please don’t tell me you got into _another_ fight with the guards,” she groaned out.

Droeur merely beamed, even as she passed out the food, smiling as she made her way through the tables once more, laughing as Dager, a gray haired nimble fingered “locksmith”, carefully spun her around, before he grabbed the tray and spun it between his hands. “Don’t you dare, Dager,” she warned and he laughed before he bowed, holding it out to her.

“Never Mother Dori,” he stated and she took it before gently smacking him upside the head.

Children, the lot of them.

Barely better than her Ori, and she began to head to Tavor, who smiled brightly at her approach.

Den of thieves though it was, she did love the regulars dearly.

“Take these ales to the back corner. And…just…careful?” Tavor answered and Dori gave a nod.

She carefully placed the ales on her tray and with a deep sigh, she headed to the back corner.

As she neared, she saw one of the ones in the back corner come into view. He was in the most defensible position, with hair in a _very_ familiar three-peaked style, and chatting almost…violently with the others at the table.

Nori, son of Riel, brother to Dori, had returned to the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Dori sings is "Long, Long, Ago" and was written during the 1800s by Thomas Haynes Bayly.
> 
> *shrugs helplessly*
> 
> I search for songs constantly. Mostly so I can giggle madly over how this can work there and such.


	16. Thin Knives (Mention of Adult Content)

Nori loved  _The Black Sword_.

It was comfy and there was a type of...safety to it. Deals could be made and, if they went south, you'd only have to watch for knives outside, not in. And if one managed to get out in a creative way, not even then. He was arguing entry into a noble's house when a voice, far too familiar, far too bright for this place, said, "Here are your ales, good Dwarves."

Nori, in denial, glanced over and barely managed to keep from staring at his older sister, gray starting to creep into her deep brown hair, thinner than he remembered (though his memory was heavily influenced by times of plenty, when their mother was bright and happy), dressed like some seedy tavern wench. It took every inch of self-control not to remove one of his knives and throw it into Baun, who had moved as if to smack her seat, only to have her deftly side-step him. "Need anything else?" she questioned lightly and Nori grabbed his tankard to keep from doing anything stupid when the others at the table looked her over as if they wanted nothing better than to...

Nori forcibly shoved his thoughts away, his knuckles white as the leader lets his eyes drag suggestively over Dori’s form. “I’m afraid that _that_ will get me fired. And I rather like having a roof over my head,” Dori responded cheerfully and spun the tray casually with one hand, an obviously practiced move and Nori wondered who had taught her that, remembering times when this very tavern light up with laughter as various thieves stole the tray from previous tavern workers, spinning it in a similar manner.

Dager was particularly gleeful to use it.

“Well, we’re good then,” he stated and Dori gave a polite nod of her head and walked away. His compatriots leaned over slightly to watch her go before they focused back on the plan.

Nori just found himself plagued with thoughts on his sister, _here_ , and when Guard-Fodder One slipped out, Nori did as well, giving a quick excuse about seeing if he could find a contact in the rabble, slipping around and carefully grabbing Dori’s arm, once he reassured himself she wasn’t carrying anything except her tray.

He then hauled her out the back, and they were in what could have once a fine courtyard, full of mountain cave crystals, which actually glowed, though how or why Nori never knew.

Now, however, it looked like it needed to be overhauled.

“Why are you here?” Nori demanded as he, carefully, shoved her into the wall next to the door once it closed.

Dori glared at him. “Same as you. Working. Though my work is a tad more honest,” she retorted and Nori realized, belatedly, she had to have let him drag her out.

When Dori had the mind, she could still scruff him like a wayward Dwarfling.

“You have a job, updistrict!” Nori argued.

“Nori, you cannot just blow in and out of my life and expect to know every detail,” Dori responded harshly, and Nori turned to her, glaring.

“What does that even mean?” Nori demanded.

Dori looked close to strangling him. “Fired, Nori. It means I was _fired_ from my _job_ , stringing _beads_ onto _silk thread_ , because…probably because I am an unwed mother! I don’t know, I was never told! And I didn’t bother to ask, not while clutching my _son_ to me and thinking ‘what can I sell so my boy doesn’t starve?’” she fired back.

Nori reeled back a bit, as if struck, and she let out a sigh, covering her face with her hand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped,” she whispered and Nori just gave a nod.

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have dragged you out, especially…especially since I am working right now. We could have discussed this at home or after they were gone,” Nori responded and carefully moved forward, resting his hands gently on her shoulders.

Dori huffed a bit and relaxed against the wall. “Not glass,” she muttered, but he just shrugged a bit.

Only then did he let out the question that was rolling around in his brain. “But why _here_?” he asked, trying desperately to understand.

He never got an answer, however, as a fine blade pressed itself to the back of his neck. “Harmem,” Dori greeted.


	17. For Once, They Talk (Mention of Murder)

Nori tensed as the name made its way through his brain and he saw Dori mostly just sigh, almost. “Harmem, what are you doing?”

“Once outside, it’s all clear Mother Dori,” Harmem, dark and deadly Harmem, who was more assassin than thief, stated calmly, almost jovially in fact.

Nori didn’t think he had done anything _recently_ to earn Harmem’s ire. At least nothing that deserved this sort of indifferent joy that, supposedly, he only used with those he killed.

“Harmem, it is not that. Take your very sharp, and very thin, knife off his neck, please,” Dori retorted, voice full of almost _motherly_ endearment, even as Nori asked, “ _Mother_ Dori?”

“He tugged you out here like a scruffed kitten,” Harmem stated.

“Harmem, if you do not remove your knife from his neck, I will break your arm in three places, starting with the _hand_ , am I clear?” Dori returned, voice taking a bite of steel, instead of the previous endearment.

Nori nearly started when he felt the knife removed and the dark Dwarf stepped around. “It can be quick and quiet; not a drop would touch you,” Harmem promised and Dori let out a long suffering sigh.

“Harmem, I wouldn’t let you remove fingers last week. I’m not letting you kill Nori. Get inside and tell everyone that it is fine. Nori is just…being Nori,” she explained, patting Harmem’s arm fearlessly.

Harmem raised an eyebrow. “We go back,” Nori stated.

Harmem gave Dori a look and she huffed. “Childhood back,” Dori explained.

Only then did the glow of the crystals catch Harmem’s knife as he twirled it around his fingers to slip it back into the hidden sheath. “As you say, Mother Dori,” he answered.

“As I say, Harmem.”

And then Harmem was gone.

“Mother Dori?” Nori asked.

“I got the nickname once I relaxed. It stuck around the regulars. And as for why…the why has never changed, Nori. Not between the first job, nor now. I tried, Nori. I tried and failed, and I am here,” she answered with a shrug.

Nori sighed and shifted so he was leaning next to the wall with her, and stared up into the darkness past the courtyard. “Dori…”

“I forgive you Nori,” Dori responded.

Nori nodded and, gently, tapped his head against hers. He sighed and scrunched his nose. “You smell of tavern,” he grumbled and she laughed.

“Ori thought the same,” she returned.

“Oh, Mahal, he’s…nine now, isn’t he?”

“Three months passed it,” she confirmed.

“I’m not staying.”

“I figured.”

Nori sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Where is he?” Nori asked softly.

“In the kitchen, under Mesi’s watchful eye,” Dori responded.

Nori winced and stared at her. “A name, please?” he begged.

“No, Nori.”

Nori sighed and stood up. He could not drag his sister away from a paying job, though he hated how close she was to the life he had so desperately tried to keep her out of, despite being the younger sibling.

He had also screwed up, again.

He had interacted with her, in public. He had shown concern, anger, _protectiveness_ towards another in a den of thieves and in front of some of the more dangerous members of the Hidden Mountain. “Go, Nori. I’ll be fine. I have no doubt Harmem is…around,” Dori answered and Nori huffed a bit as he stood up normally.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“I doubt anything would. Get,” Dori responded and Nori laughed a bit, before he slipped back inside.

He returned to the table and kept his hands firmly clasped around his tankard for the rest of the evening as they discussed plans, his eyes never straying to where Dori moved through the tables, and Dwarves, with the ease of someone who had been there for a while.

That didn’t stop him for watching out of the corner of his eye, however, even as he continued to argue with the people he was teaming up with.

As the tavern began to close up and Nori took his leave, he noticed how Harmem spun Dori around playfully and then grasped her hands in both of his before pressing a kiss to the backs of each of her hands. “Until tomorrow, my sun and moon,” he stated and slipped out while Dori shouted after him, “I still won’t give you free ale!”

Nori left quietly, with only a polite nod to Dori as he left, despite her cheery, “Good night, Mister Dwarf.”

And then he slipped away, heading as far as he could from Dori’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part scared me. Mostly because Nori and Dori _really_ don't talk so much as argue.


	18. Curious

Ori sighed softly and Mesi let out a soft laugh, ruffling his hair. “Too quiet for you, little one?” he asked gently.

Often, when Ori had fought sleep, Mesi had spoken of his younger brother and, usually, the stories would help Ori slip into sleep. Now, however, it had not worked, leaving Ori more fitful than before, kicking at his blankets and whining quietly. “Yes,” Ori whined out.

Mesi laughed softly. “Well, try. Because it was so empty, Tavor sent everyone but your mother home. And she can barely keep up because everyone who knows her _insists_ on talking with her. Rapscallions, the lot of them,” he stated and Ori huffed before he covered himself with his blankets.

Mesi laughed again and Ori knew he was focused on the cooking, as the cook hadn’t been coming in for the past week, though Ori wasn’t sure what that meant. He huffed and kicked his feet again, when he realized that there was an opening in the blankets at his feet.

Curious, Ori began to wriggle backwards until he found he was sitting at the end of his cot, near the table Mesi used for chopping vegetables…and green food. Ori made a face at the thought and stared curiously at the blankets.

If he didn’t know for a fact he was out here, he would think that he was in…there.

Ori immediately faced the door that separated the kitchen from the big room and slipped under the table, glancing cautiously up at Mesi, who was focused on cooking, before he eyed the door.

Before fear could grip his heart and immobilize him, Ori darted forward and, stretching up slightly, he grabbed the door knob and turned, slipping out into the big room, the door clicking behind him.

He darted quickly to the side, standing in shadows as he watched, curiously, as groups of Dwarves, some streaked with dirt, some not, laughed and talked. Ori clung to the woodwork of a bench that was built into the wall and he continued to look around.

He saw Amad across the room, spinning her tray like she did their one platter at home, right before she did something clever.

Right now, however, she seemed happy to spin it, until a hand darted out and, gently, batted it up, wrapping an arm around his mother’s waist before the dark haired, and dark dressed, Dwarf carefully dipped her back so she was nearly parallel to the floor with one arm, Amad’s arms coming up to hold onto the Dwarf’s shoulders while his other arm curling up to catch the tray.

The only reason Ori didn’t run over and kick the strange Dwarf because his mother was laughing like she did whenever she spun him around the room or when he tried to help her knit.

It was her happy laugh.

“Harmem, let me up this instant, you dirty rotten scoundrel,” Amad teased and the strange Dwarf, Harmem, laughed before he did just that, moving in a fluid manner that was so very strange to Ori.

He did not think people in a fight even moved that fluidly.

“As you wish, my sun and moon,” Harmem answered, and took one of Amad’s hands before he bowed over it, bringing the back of Amad’s hand to his lower face, for whatever reason, the tray practically resting against his back.

When he stood, it was to Amad’s smilng face. “I still won’t give you free ale,” she returned and tugged her hand free, allowing Harmem to clutch his chest, as if she had struck him.

“Oh, dear Jewel of Jewels, how could you doubt me so?” he asked and Amad merely laughed before she twirled around him to retrieve her tray.

Ori’s fingers tightened on the wood as his mother gently bopped the Dwarf on the head with it, Harmem laughing at the action.

Ori did not miss how other Dwarves tensed at the action, or how Harmem kept his hands firmly at his sides.

He did not miss how the other Dwarves tensed as he passed, even as Amad shifted to head over, collecting tankards from Tavor.

Ori bounced a little as he began to look around. There were songs he did not understand being sung, in a language that made Ori wonder how they didn’t lose their tongues, and everyone was generally happy. He leaned forward slightly, his new braids held together with deep purple yarn tickling his ears slightly with the movement.

His mother had put them in after their shared afternoon nap, Amad tying off the tops with the yarn and then braiding the yarn _into_ the braid before tying the end off so they stayed.

She had described it each time she did it, much to Ori’s excitement.

She said she’d put in beads when she made some.

Ori was happy with the yarn.

“Who is this?” a voice asked and Ori squeaked as he was lifted into the air, unable to shout for his mother as he suddenly found himself staring at Harmem.

He was the only one that wore black in the whole of the tavern.

“I know these braids,” he stated gently, touching one of Ori’s new braids.

Ori scowled and jerked back, smacking uselessly at Harmem’s hand. “Don’t touch! Amad just gave them to me today!” Ori snapped.

“You must be near on ten than. That’s when _my_ amad gave me my first braids,” Harmem answered gently, easily holding Ori with one arm.

He was taller than Amad, and Ori could tell, from how he was held, that this strange Dwarf had _nothing_ on Amad in strength.

So Ori stuck his tongue out at the dark haired, and black eyed, Dwarf instead of answering him, which earned Ori a laugh. “Mother Dori, I think I found a wayward charge of yours,” Harmem called.

“Waywar…Ori!” Amad responded, which turned into a shout and Ori winced as his mother barreled across the room.

“What…how…why aren’t you in the kitchen?” Amad demanded, gently taking Ori from Harmem’s arms.

Not hurried, or rushed, like she was scared Harmem would hurt him, but still he saw the tension in all the other Dwarves, even his mother’s graying hair mostly filled his vision. He wondered when it got so many pretty silver streaks in it.

“I was bored. And it was quiet,” Ori answered.

Amad groaned and then _she_ started muttering in that odd language too. “Amad!” Ori protested softly as she began to head to the kitchen.

“Mother Dori you’re…you’re _really_ a mother?” one of the dirt streaked Dwarves exclaimed and Ori felt his mother tense slightly before she turned forcing Ori to stare at a boring wall.

“Yes. Why do you think it is so easy to look after you lot? My boy is better behaved than the lot of you!” she retorted and there was laughter met with this.

“Well, you ever give the word Mother Dori, and the lot of us we’ll keep an eye on him for you,” a new voice stated and Amad laughed.

“And come back to find him picking some guard-Dwarf’s pocket?” Amad shot back.

Ori rolled his eyes a bit at that.

Only stupid heads picked a guard-Dwarf’s pocket.

And he was _not_ a stupid head.

Uncle Nori had made sure of that.

“Pick pocketing is a worthwhile skill!” another Dwarf protested.

“Uh-huh,” Amad retorted and turned back, allowing Ori to see into the room again.

Which allowed him to see Tavor giving him the ‘disappointedly proud of you’ look that his mother had perfected long before she met Tavor, and the other Dwarves. As they walked back to the kitchen, Ori raised his hand and hesitantly waved at them.

He was met with smiles and hand waves in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fought this chapter into submission.
> 
> Somehow.


	19. Ori's Dream

Ori wilted under his mother’s disapproving gaze as she settled him on the cot. “Ori, you cannot go wandering out there into the main room!” she scolded and he pouted, even as he picked at his sweater sleeves.

“I…I wanted to see. And it was quiet,” Ori protested softly.

“I’m sorry I lost him Miss Dori,” Mesi stated and Dori let out a soft sigh. “It isn’t your fault. His uncle has taken the right to teach his ‘sister-son’ as his own son to heart. Ori is very good at sneaking about,” Dori returned and Ori scrunched over more as he saw his mother’s skirts bunch in a way that suggested she was kneeling down.

Fingers, rough and cracking slightly at the creases from washing tables and even helping with the washing of the dishes, gently touched his chin and lifted his face until she was looking him in the eye. He shifted his head slightly so he was staring up at her, using the face that always had Uncle Nori getting him treats. “Oh, no wonder he’s always giving you sweets,” Amad muttered before she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Then she leaned back and gave him a look. “Ori, I have you stay back here for your safety. Sometimes, there are not very nice people there. Now, you noticed how everyone called me ‘Mother Dori’?” she responded and Ori gave a simple ‘uh-huh.’

“They make sure that those not very nice people don’t hurt me. But you need to stay back here, where Mesi will make sure not very nice people won’t hurt _you_. Besides, I can take care of myself. You saw me with that purse-snatcher, right?” Amad stated.

Ori huffed. “But it was quiet and I was _curious_ ,” he protested.

“I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t go out there! Not while I am working. Now, you need to go to _sleep_ ,” Amad answered softly and Ori whined a bit, kicking slightly as she swooped him up into her arms.

He fought her, exhaustion tugging at everything, but it was too quiet. He shook his head slightly as he tried to fight her arms. “Oh, Ori,” she murmured softly and her heartbeat was suddenly pounding in his ear while the other carefully curled over his other, the rushing of his own heartbeat filling his hearing.

He yawned and clung to her as she began to sing softly, her voice rumbling through. _“Far over, the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old…”_

Ori struggled to stay awake as the new song began to thrum in the air around him, but he soon lost his battle and slumped into sleep, his mind sparking with dreams of what once could have been a great city built into a mountain that stood alone.

Of a road that rushed away from it to a lakeside town and up a river and through a darkened wood, before racing over the mist covered mountains to the east, all of it gleaming under starlight and echoing with danger.

Through it all, Ori felt no fear.

Because he could also see Uncle Nori and hear his mother's voice.

And he knew that if they were there, he would be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Over the Misty Mountains Cold' was, I believe, actually written by Tolkien (but I have been wrong before and I will accept any correction)
> 
> I only did a couple of lines because the whole song doesn't need to be there unless I am writing it.
> 
> (Which, for you poor unfortunates, is upcoming. I am writing up a lullaby for Ori. Slowly, but surely.)


	20. Another Interlude (Aka, Dori is gonna need to wash her brain out with soap)

Dori let out a low sigh as she cradled a sleeping Ori against her shoulder and hummed softly as she shifted, trying to pull her knit shawl more around Ori, when Tavor was suddenly helping, gently tugging it around so Ori practically disappeared, though leaving her right arm free. “I really wish that you would just accept my offer of a room here. Don’t like you walking out and about at this hour,” Tavor stated, even as he began to mess with the tassels on her shawl, his fingers quickly and surely making one of his knots.

“I’ll be _fine_ , Tavor. Now, stop worrying,” she responded, gently nuzzling the top of Ori’s head as Tavor huffed about disreputable Dwarves and how the less she had to travel through the Pits the better. She shook her head at him and gently smacked his arm with her free hand before she headed for the front of the tavern.

The soft glow of the lamps that light the Pits during the night created as many shadows as they casted light, and she turned with a smile back at Tavor. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she stated and began to head down the winding lane.

She walked calmly down, keeping to the flickering light, she heard someone go, “Mother Dori?”

She jumped and spun around, her arm up defensively while she protectively curled around Ori, only to relax when her eyes picked the figure out of the shadows. She did not hesitate to step forward and smack him, _hard_ on the arm. “Don’t do that Harmem!” she snapped, right before she began to hum comfortingly to Ori, who shifted fitfully against her.

Harmem chuckled and reached out before he gently tugged her into the shadows. “You shouldn’t walk alone,” he stated and Dori gave a snort.

“I can take care of myself, Harmem,” she returned softly reaching up to rub the back of her neck before she gave a sudden yawn.

“Look, Harmem, what do you want to ask? Because I am tired and my feet hurt and I want to go home,” Dori questioned and Harmem gave a soft confirmation.

“I…I wanted to ask…about that Nori,” Harmem started.

“What about him?” Dori asked tiredly.

“Well…you know him. Pretty well, from what I can tell. You were comfortable around him, if irritated, and I was wondering…well…Ori’s hair is like a lighter shade of his…” Harmem began and Dori woke up as if she saw Smaug rising up out of Erebor.

She immediately began to gag slightly, covering her mouth as she swallowed back the urge to get sick. Only after she swallowed it back did the series of expletives fly from her mouth, which earned a startled chuckle from Harmem.

“Oh, Mahal, _no_! Oh, Mahal, oh…Mahal, no, never, not ever, oh, _Mahal_ , I think I might vomit after all,” Dori exclaimed, covering her mouth once more as she attempted to keep back her urge to be sick.

Harmem was chuckling slightly at that, rubbing her back gently. "I'm sorry Mother Dori."

She lowered her hand and choked out, “You should be,” before she went back to attempting to keep back the bile.

Dori then handed Ori over to Harmem, along with her shawl and headed to an alleyway, choking out some acidic liquid. She shuddered slightly at the taste and stood up, gently tapping her sleeve to her lips. She shivered slightly and jumped a bit when her shawl gently settled around her shoulders.

She stood up slightly and took Ori back as she began to tuck her shawl around them again, hiding Ori away from the chill of the Pits. “Well, who is Nori, to you?” Harmem asked and Dori shook her head slightly, tucking loose hair back up and out of her face.

“Nori is Nori. And he likes to enter mine, and Ori’s, life completely at random, with no understanding of what is happening in our lives, while at the same time…I don’t have any understanding of his life. And it has been that way since before o…my mother’s death. In one of his disappearances, she died. In another, I became a Journeyman, and in one I got pregnant with Ori,” she answered and let out a soft laugh.

“We’ve missed each other’s big moments all our lives, omitting Ori’s birth, actually. We have very little understanding of who we are _now_. All of our understanding is… _you_ are _far_ too easy to talk to,” Dori continued and she glared at Harmem, who chuckled in response and gently nudged her.

He then dropped his hand to her lower back and tugged his hood up, easily hiding himself as any other Dwarf. “If you would allow me, oh Jewel of Jewels, to escort you home?” he inquired.

“Very well, you incorrigible rapscallion, you may escort me home,” Dori answered and Harmem nodded before he guided her unapologetically to home.

As normal, there was no one between her and there and the minute she got home, she glared at Harmem. “Wait,” she ordered and she slipped inside, making sure he wouldn’t be able to see inside.

She carefully settled Ori on the bed and covered Ori with her shawl before she carefully tugged a pair of fingerless gloves with pockets on the back of them, as dark as an unlight mine out of her knitting basket, the stone buttons holding the pockets on.

“Here,” she stated, holding them out.

“They flip over into mittens. I noticed you don’t have anything covering your hands, ever. I am not sure why, but…during the winter, you always moved your hands slowly, and I realized that, whatever you do, that is probably bad for your hands to get stiff. So…here you are,” Dori stated and carefully shoved them at Harmem, who took them with some surprise.

“They…they have leather grips on them,” he whispered out.

“Well, yes. It wouldn’t do for one of your knives to go flying or you not using them because of that,” she retorted with a soft huff.

“Why?”

Dori gave a sigh and gently tugged on his hood, the only thing she would touch.

She knew he was particular about how everything sat against him. “Well, you needed them. So I made them. Besides, that’s what mothers do, isn’t it? Fuss and fret and make things to try and fix it,” she retorted and crossed her arms defensively in front of her.

She was a bit surprised when Harmem, still holding the fingerless gloves that could turn into mittens in one hand, leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Yes, that’s what mothers do, Mother Dori,” Harmem answered and pulled back again.

There was silence for a moment and then he, carefully, tugged them on, Dori comfortable with the fact that the cuffs of the mittens covered his wrist, but didn’t touch the ends of his sleeves. “You have a good eye,” he stated.

She gave a small shrug in response. “My brother, he…he never sat still and was always fidgeting. If I wanted to make him anything, I had to guess. Practice makes perfect as Men say,” she answered.

“Should have just beaned him in the head with a rock,” Harmem murmured, carefully curling his hands into fists and relaxing.

“He just threw it back. And renewed his fidgeting. Mother eventually demanded we stop throwing rocks at each other,” she explained with a small shrug.

Harmem suddenly flipped one his knives out of their hidden place and nodded a bit. “You’re brother’s not the most honest of Dwarves, is he?” Harmem asked.

“Depends on what you define as honest. Now get. I would like to sleep _sometime_ tonight,” she responded and Harmem gave a polite bow before he disappeared.

Dori shut the door and slid the lock into place.

Briefly, she leaned against the door, and then she stood up straight.

Time to scrub the smell of smoke from _her_ hair and skin and then it was Ori’s turn.


	21. Three Noble Boys (Bullying)

Dori wrapped her shawl more firmly around her shoulders as Ori twisted her skirt in his fists, his eyes staring longingly at the toy stall.

She thought about the coins that "appeared" in her home after giving Harmem his fingerless gloves that could turn into mittens, and the way Ori wasn't asking, despite the fact that he so desperately wanted to ask. And, despite his sneaking out, he had been very well behaved _since_ and, most especially, on this trip. She reached down and carefully led him off to the side before knelt down in front of him.

“Ori, would you like to go look at the toy stall?” she asked.

The squeal of ‘yes’ and the fact he _launched_ himself at her, hugging her tightly, scrabbling to say, ‘yes’, ‘Amad is best,’ and ‘thankyouthankyouthankyou’ spilling off his tongue and tangling in the air as she laughed brightly, running a gentle hand down his back before she stood up, her empty shopping basket hanging from her elbow as she held her son tightly, running fingers through his hair gently.

* * *

Ori stared in amazement at all the toys.

Some were strange and grotesque, but _cool_ , while others were far simpler, like wooden tops. However, all of them were on the expensive side, even the cheapest of them (which was the tops) and that was something that they couldn’t afford.

He knew his runes and could read fairly well, _especially_ for his age.

“You can touch them,” a voice, slightly garbled, growled out and Ori’s head snapped up to find he was staring right at a Dwarf, with wild black hair and an ax buried in his head.

“No, that’s okay,” Ori answered softly, even as he _longed_ to hold one, and he looked back down, his eyes focusing entirely on the tops.

He felt Amad shift her grip slightly as she held him, while he investigated the tops. Some had designs painted on them, others plain. One had a deep purple stripe painted around it, followed by others with different colored stripes, but he reached out for the one with the purple stripe, before he moved to pull back his hand.

He was a bit surprised when the toy stall owner gently took his wrist (which caused Amad to tense slightly) and he gently placed the one with a purple stripe into his hand, using his now free hand to guide Ori’s hands into holding it, though it was more like Ori _cradled_ it in his too small hands.

Ori trembled lightly, remembering the blankets he grew up with, his mother’s smiling face, and the counting games as he sat next to her at her work.

Of the knit things that were often undone and used to make something new as the winter months, and his birthday, grew closer, of opening a present to find clothing instead of a toy, but suddenly his mother is showing him how to make socks into puppets, until Uncle Nori brings a book, then another and Amad brings cheap charcoal to draw on their empty wall, because Amad could wash the wall off, always apologizing, even though Ori was often covered in charcoal dust and stained his clothes with it.

But Ori only had one toy that he could claim as his own, the knit cat his mother made him.

And Ori trembled in holding this toy, even as he stretched to put it back, because they couldn’t afford this, and he should have said _no_ , because it hurts to put it back and suddenly he’s shifting and he’s on his Amad’s hip, farther away from the stall. “How much is the top?” she asked, simply, as if they had all the money in the world.

Ori doesn’t hear the answer through his _blaze_ of happiness that fill his being, even as he hugs her and thanks her brightly, clinging tightly to her. For the first time, they head off to a side courtyard, filled with some watchful mothers and their children, and a fountain in the middle, and Amad carefully settles on a bench near the smoothest stretch of stone and Ori is suddenly sitting on the ground.

He sets the top on the ground and spins it, grinning at the way it whirls around, before it slowly begins to wobble.

He snatches it up quickly and respins it. He laughs a bit as he continues his game, happy with his top and he looks up when his mother touches his head. Looking up, he can see the mothers, now across the courtyard instead of scattered about it, as far from his mother that they can get. “Ori, it is time to get back to shopping,” she stated, and Ori grasps the top tightly.

“Can’t…can’t I stay here and play?” he asked.

Amad let out a low sigh and slowly kneels down in front of him. “Ori, you’ll still have it later,” she stated.

“You’re going to the yarn place, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Well, can’t you go to yarn place and leave me here?” he asked, pointing to the stall, the only yarn stall, there and she sighed.

It was right across from the courtyard with the pretty fountain, and with sunlight spilling all around from where it was reflected in, far brighter than back home.

He could easily see it, the market not full, not yet, and with all these other Dwarves around with their children play, also away from him and Amad.

Amad was torn and, still clutching his top, he twisted his hands into her skirts. “I’ll be right here, Amad, promise,” he answered.

Her hand reached up, gently playing with his hair.

Tavor had shown his mother how to do one of his knots and suggested adding it to his braids, in yarn, and so they hung there, at the tops of the braids, so they didn’t tickle. She sighed, eyes concerned, and she seemed to almost slump. “Very well Ori. But…if a single person tries to grab you, what did Uncle teach you to do?” she asked.

Ori tapped his fingers on her nose and added, “Also eyes. And other soft spots.”

It was in a whisper and she smiled, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Good boy,” she answered softly and he released her skirt so she could stand.

She hesitated and then she was forcing herself to walk away. Ori watched her go and only once reassured that _she_ was safe (there was one of the Dwarves from the tavern tossing an apple from hand to hand near her) did he go back to spinning his top.

Ori _really_ wasn’t expecting someone to snatch it from the ground right in front of him. “Give it back!” Ori shouted, on his feet in an instant, not caring that he was younger, and shorter, than those around him.

The hand shoving him back onto the ground was a bit unexpected.

He ‘oofed’ and covered his head with his arms as dust was thrown at him. They began to taunt him, calling him names that he would never repeat to a single soul, not even Amad, but they cut, deeply and spoke of no father.

Some of it was in that odd tongue, probably repeated words they heard when their merchant parents took them journeying.

The thing that made him snap, however, was when one of them (he has brown hair, but his beard is near black) said his mother a disreputable Dwarf who deserved what was coming to her.

With a growl of rage, he launched himself at the speaker, bare fists slamming into his face before he was hauled back by the others and thrown back onto the ground, though he still tried to claw his way back to the one who disrespected his mother.

Even if he didn’t know what one of those words meant, he _knew_ it was an insult.

But one kicks him, followed by another, more insults flying fast and furious, and then there is a shout of rage.

A blonde haired Dwarf boy tackles one, followed closely by a dark haired one, and one that could be a bit younger than Ori tackles a third, biting down on the hand holding the top. It goes flying, but Ori is trying to give the one who insulted his mother a bloody nose and doesn’t see where the top bounces to.

Now, of course, the fight has gotten attention from parents and there are some shouts and unfamiliar hands lift him up, and he fights them with a snarl, demanding he take from the other Dwarf child’s skin for the ‘injury’ to Amad’s honor.

A Dwarf mother in a pretty fur-trimmed dress is hauling up the first two tacklers while the one holding him already has the Biter.

“Amad!” Ori shouts when he sees his mother, who has shoved her way through the crowd and she’s there in an instant, taking him from the grip, crying over his hands, while the other mother is demanding answers from the two she’s holding.

“They were kicking him! And calling him nasty names! Like Orc-spawn!” the blonde shouted and Ori sniffled a bit.

He had not heard that one.

“What?” Amad demanded.

“And they stole his top!” the dark haired boy added.

“But Gimli bit that one on his hand!” the blond continued.

“Oh, and the one he was punching insulted his mother,” the dark-haired Dwarfling stated, even as the other mothers collected their injured children.

The Dwarf-mother with the fur-trimmed dress set them down. “Why did it get to kicking?” she demanded.

“We had to take Gimli with us,” they answered cheerfully.

She gave a nod and then pat their heads. “Good job boys. Your uncle will be very proud of you when he gets home. Now…I believe retributions need to be paid,” she stated and rounded on the other mothers.

“Amad, what’s retributions?” Ori asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Amad answered softly, gently touching his face, and looking him over.

He whimpered a bit when her hand touched a sore spot and she carefully shifted her grip so he was cradled in her arms. “Miss?” a voice stated and Ori looked over to find that a tattooed Dwarf was standing there, still holding Gimli.

“Dwalin,” Amad answered.

“Lady Dis will take care of this. My cousin is a healer, and I am sure he will be more than happy to look over your little one for free. Fili, Kili, come along,” Dwalin ordered and the two boys quickly trotted after Dwalin.

They walked to the side of the courtyard and Ori twisted. “My top,” he said and the dark haired Dwarf immediately doubled back. He grabbed it and ran back.

“The paint, and wood, are a bit chipped, but it should be fine,” Kili answered and Amad leaned down slightly so Ori could take it.

“Thank you,” Ori stated.

Kili beamed. “No problem,” he answered, even as Amad stood up normally.

“He smiles like Uncle,” Ori whispered and Amad chuckled a bit, though it was watery.

“Don’t tell Dwalin that,” she returned.

Ori hummed a bit and clutched tightly to the top as they stepped into a _house_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was practically all fluff.
> 
> Everyone who knows my writing should have been expecting it to get angsty.
> 
> Also...yeah, that's how bad off Dori and Ori were, and still are.
> 
> (Let's not think about what Dori is going to be giving up to get Ori that top, okay? It will give you more feels.)
> 
> Also...I tried to keep other members of the Company away.
> 
> It not happening.


	22. Confessions

Dori held the sleeping Ori in her lap.

Oin, the healer, was very gentle with him, and had not blinked at her lack of marriage beads, or braids, or any other adornment of marriage. He was careful with Ori, and had the child relaxed. His gentle prodding had him frowning slightly and then smiling, swearing that it was only bruising. He would be tender and need to be handled with kid gloves for a bit, but it would be fine.

She had thanked him, and tried offer payment, but he had turned her down, saying that in the cases of bullying, the child wronged got free treatment for any injuries given. It was not an official law, but he did not wish to incur Lady Dis’s wrath.

She had accepted and then Dwalin had said that it would be best if she stayed until Lady Dis could come speak with her, and Ori had played, for a time, with Fili, Kili, and Gimli, the three noble Dwarflings that had leapt in to defend her son.

Three _nobles_ , from _powerful_ noble lines.

Oh, she had noble _blood_ , to be sure, but now she knew why _Fundin_ was so Mahal-cursed (she _really_ needed to stop hanging out around thieves) familiar.

She didn’t mind nobles, unlike everyone else in _The Black Sword._

She rather liked them, when they did their jobs. With her basket at her feet and her son in her arms, however, she was starting to despise them a bit. Night was going to fall soon, and she did not relish walking back in the dark.

She did not relish having to find someone to carry a message down to her work and tell Tavor she wouldn’t be in tonight. She let out a low sigh and nearly jumped out of her skin when Dwalin suddenly knelt in front of her.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“I have to head to work soon. I can’t stay here much longer,” she explained.

Dwalin frowned a bit. “I thought you worked at the small factory,” he responded and she shook her head, the yarn she used instead of amongst her beads tickling behind her ear.

“Not for some months,” she admitted softly and she ignored his questioning glance.

She sighed and knew that she’d have to hurry to work. She wouldn’t have time to change her braids slightly, or brush out her hair, or even change her dress. “ _The Black Sword_ ,” she answered.

Dwalin nodded once and said Lady Dis would be there later to discuss with her the actions taken against the mothers of the children who had harmed her child.

When Dori left, and turned a corner, she ran with all haste to her work and where her wayward children would need a warning.

* * *

“I can…” Harmem murmured into her ear and she smacked him, once.

“Harmem, _no_ ,” she answered.

He sighed and sat down in his booth as she set his plate of food down in front of him, next to the ale she had already given him.

He grumbled softly, but carefully shifted the gloves so he could eat without staining them.

Now that she thought about it, since receiving the gloves, she had never once seen them off him.

And just yesterday, when he had been in one of the deal-making corners (and she sometimes wished she didn’t know that), something had been said about the gloves, and Harmem had tapped one his knife blades against the other Dwarf’s cheek, smiling far too cheerily.

Dori knew that both of these actions meant he would be disappearing, though the last time he had tapped his knife to someone’s cheek, he disappeared for two months.

Not unheard of, apparently, though before he had never been gone more than two weeks before that time, returning far too thin and far too cheery.

Tavor said he saw _The Black Sword_ as a rest stop between journeys.

Dori saw that he was setting up a pattern and one day he was going to get caught.

She hoped that she was wrong.

The door opened, the newly installed bell ringing and she turned to choke on air. “What’s _he_ doing here? He said _just_ Lady Dis!” she hissed out and Harmem leaned back slightly.

“Dwalin? Of course he’s here. If he’s not with Exiled King Thorin, he’s with Lady Dis, mother to the heirs of the Kingless Kingdom, Erebor,” Harmem answered.

“She’s _royalty_?” Dori squeaked out, even as Lady Dis stood there and Harmem nodded while Dori internally panicked over the fact that she had been talking with _her_ royalty.

Not some lord of some decrepit hall, but _her_ royalty.

“Better get over there before they do something stupid, like call your name,” Harmem warned and she immediately walked over.

“Lady Dis, Dwalin,” she greeted.

Lady Dis nodded and she glanced over Dori’s shoulder. She turned slightly and found Tavor at her shoulder.

Yes, let’s show off thief background by moving like a _cat_.

She was going to grab him by the scarf she had given him and slam him into a wall for sheer stupidity. “There’s an ill-used room just beyond the kitchen. Dori knows the way,” Tavor stated.

“Thank you,” Lady Dis stated and Tavor pat Dori’s shoulder comfortingly before sending her on her way.

Dori just wanted to shake this royal person and demand what was wrong with her to walk into the Pits.

And she wanted to shake Dwalin and demand what _he_ was thinking, putting the _Line of Durin_ at risk!

Neither of them had a _lick_ of common sense and they were going to kill them all before they ever took Erebor back.

* * *

Dori slowly sat down on Ori’s cot, at his feet, while she stared at the purse in her hands, filled with coins, the tavern closed up for the night, everything cleaned up and put away.

Earlier, they had paused upon seeing Ori sleeping on the cot in the unused corner, on his back and still holding his top. She had explained that there was none to watch him while she worked, and Mesi was a fearsome guardian to watch over her son, Mesi giving a salute with one of his boning knives.

“Dori?” Tavor called and she looked up to the tavern owner who was standing at the doorway.

“I…they gave me coins. Due to my son’s honor, as well as my own, being maligned,” she stuttered out and stared back down at the purse.

“They…they…gave me _coins_ for it,” she stated.

“That’s the usual thing, since Erebor fell. Unless you have no coin to give. Then it is the traditional from the skin,” Tavor pointed out and she shook her head, hair falling out and into her face.

No one had ever tried to give her back her honor, except Nori.

Oh, she was sure if anyone said something about her within the walls of this tavern, if Harmem didn’t attempt to cut out tongues, one of the others would remove the speaker, because boys will start fights over the _stupidest_ of things.

But no one had actually gone out of their way to give retribution for her stolen honor.

She jumped slightly as two black gloved hands gently curled over her own. She looked up into Harmem’s concerned gaze.

And after this long day, this exhausting day of whispers and snickers behind hands, of hearing soft laughs when she had removed some of her beads to pay for skeins of yarn, knowing she’d never get them back, and the merchant's eyes widening, because he had seen her pass the coins over to the toy maker, knew what she had chosen, of hearing the shout of rage and turning to see Ori dirty and hurt, trying his best to pound in a far older child’s face in, was all too much.

She began to sob, the emotional turmoil of the day catching up. Harmem shushed her gently as he carefully curled his arms around her urging her to his shoulder as she sobbed out against his shoulder.

“No one’s done this for me since my brother! Which was too little too late! Because my _intended_ left me! He left and took the courting gifts, every last one, and the family heirlooms that were the most expensive, and left me with a cold bed and a colder house, and a shattered heart and town guards pounding on my door, wanting to know where he was and the binding ritual only a week away…and…and he left, and I still don’t know what I did _wrong_ , but I _must_ have, I must have…” she sobbed out as she clung to Harmem because he was _there_ , and he was holding her gently as she did so.

She coughed weakly and there was Tavor telling her that she should just sleep here for the night, she was in no condition to go home, even if Harmem walked her to bed, and her boots were being pulled off her feet before she could protest (because they started blistering earlier this week, her needing to have boots _made_ , not bought second-hand and thicker socks) and they’re easing her back onto the cot, and she’s out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided that much as changed in Dori's life because of the fact she is female.
> 
> The fact she is going to be the strongest Dwarf in the Company is not one of them.
> 
> Mainly that, while I will try to align her to being with movie!Dori...she's not going to have that entirely same out look.
> 
> Yes, she's going to fuss over and mother Ori, because...that's what she does. But she had a much harder time, because she wasn't married, had a young son that she was raising on her own, and was ostracized for it, except around the Regulars (and Tavor).
> 
> So, she's honorable still, but it is a different _type_ of honor; It is not nobility honor.
> 
> (Saying 'thieves' honor' is not accurate, but thieves do, in fact, have honor. It is just not one most people recognize.)
> 
> Also...her having an emotional breakdown after the week she's had (Ori going out into the main room and scaring her, realizing she needs new boots because these are making her feet blister, this chapter) I think she's allowed to have one.
> 
> Also, her throwing up about the "implied relationship from outsider's prospective with her brother Nori because they didn't know that Nori was her brother" is also a stress related thing, which that just pushed it over the edge for her (Oh, Harmem scared her too), because she just couldn't laugh off the assumptions right then.
> 
> It was actually a foreshadowing that Dori was getting too stressed and she was taking on too much.
> 
> (Not that she has a choice in taking on too much, but everyone has a breaking point. Dori just hit hers with a _battering ram_.)
> 
> Ugh, I am tired.
> 
> No more notes or writing.


	23. Exhausted Listening and Dwarf Bluntness

Dori woke with a low groan and feeling as if grit was all across her skin and in her eyes. She shifted and moved slightly, her hair a tangled mess (which meant she hadn’t done it up in a sleeping braid and…that was slightly confusing) and she lifted her arm off of a sleeping Ori before she rubbed her eyes tiredly, clearing sleep grit out of her eyes (slightly painfully), before she slowly sat up so she was at the foot of the bed from ease of practice…only to find herself in the kitchen from work.

Ori is still asleep and she let out a low groan before she began to undo what remained of her braids, letting her beads and cuts of yarn settle at the small of Ori’s back before she scrubbed at her scalp, thick reddish brown with great streaks of silver-gray falling in waves to pool around her on the cot. She continued to scrub and she looked up when she heard a low whistle.

She looked up to find herself staring at Tavor. He stepped fully into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. “Good morning, Tavor. My apologies for taking up the cot. Must have been more tired than I thought,” she answered as she carefully collected up her yarn and beads, standing up slowly as she placed them on the table, wincing slightly at the bite of the wood into her hurting feet.

“So, you’re going to pretend like you didn’t have a crying fit last night while clinging to Harmem while asking what _you_ , you who has managed to steal your way into some of the best thieves and con-dwarves’ hearts in all the Hidden Mountain, (“Stop telling me those things,” Dori interrupted softly, but Tavor, as always, ignored her), did something wrong to have some orc-hearted, low-living, Shadow-stained, moron leave you?” Tavor asked and Dori leaned forward slightly, bracing herself on the sturdy table.

“Yes, I am going to pretend that it didn’t happen,” Dori responded softly and winced slightly as she took a step forward.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself worse. And I won’t let you pretend that. Before Harmem left to fulfill a contract, and he hated to go, he made me promise to make sure that you didn’t do just that,” Tavor answered and she sat down on the chair after she pulled all her hair over her shoulder.

There was a sigh and a soft scraping as Tavor dragged a stool over to her and sat down in front of her and she sighed. “But…that festering pile of dragon dung is the reason why you are here in the Pits?” he asked softly and she nodded a bit, just wanting to close her eyes and go back to sleep and wake up again to realize this was all a nightmare.

That her most closely guarded secret wasn’t known.

“You’re here because some festering pool of slime decided that abandoning you a week before the Binding Ceremony was a good idea,” Tavor stated and Dori nodded tiredly, even as she stated, “Not in front of Ori.”

“Fine. Not in front of Ori. And your brother is a dead-weight,” Tavor began to retort when Dori’s hand snapped out and covered his mouth, eyes narrowing into a glare.

“Don’t say a _thing_ against my brother,” Dori warned and Tavor raised his hands in surrender before she pulled back, obviously exhausted.

“Dori, as much as I want to demand a name, and what the festering slime looks like, I won’t. Because you are tired and you…you don’t deserve someone raking you over the coals about it. But, I also won’t let you pretend that it didn’t happen. Because it did,” Tavor stated and Dori sighed before she gave a tired nod in agreement.

She wasn’t going to be able to brush it off as nothing, because Tavor was going to know it wasn’t nothing. “Okay. I won’t pretend it didn’t happen,” she responded softly and leaned against the table.

“All right. Let’s get you and Ori prettied up before the healer gets here to look at your blistered feet,” Tavor stated and Dori let out a soft laugh at that.


	24. Complex Braids

Dori was humming softly (and ignoring how _exhausted_ she felt) as she twisted her slightly damp hair slowly into her daily braids, no longer needing a mirror to insure that her complex weave actually remained a curled extravaganza of braids instead of an imitation of a bird’s nest.

Occasionally she made sure to give her hands and arms a rest by clipping her hair into place, though she also used those breaks to take deep breaths and pretend that she was sitting on the edge of bed at home, watching Ori spin his top across the floor, instead of in one of Tavor’s empty rooms above the tavern.

They were both clean, thanks to Tavor’s insistence of hospitality that also included brand new clothes that Dori was sure would have otherwise been given during the Festival of Buzninh, where the Dwarf men gave the Dwarf ladies and Dwaflings in their lives useful gifts.

So, both were wearing their soft new clothes in matching shades of lavender, though the accents were different.

Ori was dressed in a pale lavender tunic that reached his knees, which was decorated along the cuffs and collar with brown embroidery that made up the knots that decorated _The Black Sword_. His trousers that matched the embroidery in color, and soft boots were only set apart by the slight fur lining they had at the top, the bronze buckles for decoration over any actual purpose.

Dori was wearing a modest, multi-layered outfit. Over her normal undergarments, there was a pale gray, long sleeved, high collared underdress that had lavender embroidery along the cuffs and collar, though the ones on the collar were much thicker, to match Ori’s embroidery. Over this was a lavender overskirt that hooked near seamlessly into her laced up sleeveless bodice, the laces gray to match the underdress.

She felt ridiculous in it despite Ori’s insistence she was the prettiest Amad in all of Eried Luin, prettier than even Lady Dis.

She had laughed and smiled before pressing a kiss to his forehead, and then it was like any other morning.

“Amad?” Ori called and she paused in her humming to focus on him.

“Yes Ori?”

“Is Tavor trying to make us move in with him?” Ori questioned and she let out a soft laugh before she carefully twisted her yarn in to hold the hair fast to another braid, remembering when it had been plain silver hair clasps there instead, with an ornate hair piece to hold the strands in place to give her arms a break instead of the plain one that was just to hold.

“I think that is his grand plan, yes,” she murmured softly, finishing a twisting under braid before she carefully clipped it into place so that it would not move.

There was a soft knock and Dori called, “Come in.”

She glanced up and nearly groaned when she saw it was Dager. “No, out,” she demanded even as Ori laughed brightly at that.

“Oh, now, now Mother Dori! Tavor said you could use some company!” Dager answered, even as he shut the door behind him. He took the short backed chair and spun it around to settle on it backwards, gray clad arms crossed over the back of it.

He watched Ori with a smile and eyed Dori as she continued with her hair ritual. “That’s a lot of hair,” he stated.

“Yes, it is. In my family, you don’t cut it until you get married, but otherwise you keep it long. Mostly,” she explained and he waved his hand at her.

She rolled her eyes, but hummed a bit in thought, while Ori scooted forward to curl his hands into her skirts. “Trimming is acceptable, of course, as that keeps the hair healthy. If I ever went off on a journey, I would cut it as well. This long, it would only cause problems,” she answered, closing her eyes as she carefully ‘spun’ her wisps of hair at the base of her skull into the one of the two main braids that would curl around the base of her skull to join her beard braids before doubling back with the beard hair swept up into to the top of her head.

Once there, she paused by putting the clip to hold it into place and let her arms drop with a sigh. “Normally this is when Amad makes breakfast,” Ori stated helpfully and she opened her eyes.

“Tavor says your Amad’s got to stay off her feet,” Dager stated and she glared.

“Dager, don’t you…” she warned, but she was cut off by her own surprised shriek as Dager easily swept her up into his arms with a grin.

“Ah, Jewel of the Black Sword, it will be my greatest honor to carry you down the stairs like the princess you are. Come, young Ori, time for breakfast,” Dager answered and Ori quickly ran after them while Dori clung to Dager, trying to mentally will him into setting her onto the ground, even as Ori asked, “Can I bring my top?”

* * *

Ori smiled as he cuddled against his mother, practicing his braiding on her free hair while she worked on the other half.

Breakfast had been a surprising affair, with most of the odd Dwarves, like the one throwing the apple, there, and Amad not allowed to move once settled on the chair. She had treated them like she did him during dinner, and she had shoved away heavy food, eating the stew while she tried to get him to eat greens until a Dwarf that introduced himself as Droeur had plucked Ori from Amad’s lap and said she’d never eat if she mothered them all the entire time.

Amad, of course, had asked him if _Droeur_ had eaten _his_ greens and that had earned the entire table roaring in laughter before Tavor had swept Ori up with a laugh, settling him back with Amad.

Now, back in the room and waiting for the healer, Dager was humming a song. “What’s that?” Ori asked, focusing on the gray haired Dwarf.

“Ah…um…it’s a song your mother might not like me singing to ya,” Dager stated and she shook her head.

“ _The Cant of Mahal_ is an adorable song. He’ll need to know it eventually, will he not? Only way he’ll understand the lot of you when you forget yourselves and forget he can’t understand over half of what you say,” Amad answered and Dager ducked slightly.

“Ya…know?” he questioned.

“Dager, I am not stupid. That and I have the knot over the door hanging in my window given to me by my brother and he hummed that song to Ori while he was still in the womb. But if I see a single one of you with a knife near my boy trying to teach him knife tricks, I’ll break every bone in the teacher’s hand,” Amad responded and she pointed the borrowed clasp threateningly at Dager, who nodded.

“I swear by my fingers, I’ll never teach him any knife tricks,” he stated.

Amad’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Or any other sharp, pointy, objects,” she warned.

“Or any other sharp, pointy, objects, by my fingers. Now, come Ori and I shall teach you _The Cant of Mahal_ ,” Dager stated, as he lifted Ori up, settling into the corner.

“Now, it is just a little song we teach our young’uns, if we ever get them. You sing along now, and don’t ask your Amad to teach them to you. I’m teachin’ her just as I teach you, since she’s got to learn too,”

“ _Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_The old man runs across the hall,_  
_Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_The fox is in the bower tall._

 _“Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_The maiden whispers ‘hale.’_  
_Hey-high-diddle-die-oh_  
_The star answers, ‘shale.’_

_“Hey-high-diddle-die-oh…”_

_“The cat’s treading the lane._  
_Hey-high-diddle-die-oh_  
_There is nowhere for you to go,_ ” Uncle Nori finished off and Ori perked up before leaping up and running over to Uncle Nori, who knelt down to lift him up into the air, tossing him up a bit (which had Amad gasping softly), before balancing Ori on his hip, Ori gleefully hugging Nori around the neck carefully once settled.

He wondered how Uncle Nori had found them without his knot in the window.

* * *

Nori smiled as Ori hugged him and he glanced over at Dori, who was giving him a look as she finished up the last of her weave of braids that circled her head and crisscrossed over the top in some sort-of intricate crown of hair until she let the last bit of hair fall free, hiding the most demanding work under a shoulder length wave of deep brown-grey.

“Why do you do that?” Nori asked and she sighed.

“Why do you do that odd thing that makes your head look like a star-fish?” Dori returned and Nori scowled at her while Dager laughed, standing up to stare down at Dori with a frown.

“S’different,” he stated.

“Dager…I do a bunch of braids into one that is curled over my shoulder. How would it not be different?” she questioned in that manner Nori knew when that, when it was aimed at him, suggested she thought Nori was being incredibly stupid, only this time it was aimed at Dager.

Dager picked up on it, much to Nori’s panic, but Dager only laughed loudly. “True, true. Well, you two are obviously friends and, as he’s not gutted, not the father, so I’m off. Watch our Mother Dori carefully Nori. And make sure she keeps off her feet. Healer’s gonna be here soon for them blisters. Take care Jewel of the Black Sword,” Dager answered and pressed a kiss to Dori’s braids before he ruffled Ori’s hair, carefully, whistling the song as he walked off.

“They have no clue you can lift an anvil while kicking the last out of its place, do they?” Nori questioned.

“Not a one,” Dori answered with a low chuckle of amusement.

Ori joined in the giggling, every inch the mischievous kit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buzninh, the Garden Lady, my Dwarvish name for Yavanna, Mahal/Aule's wife/consort/whatever.
> 
> I am not bothering with accents because I cannot type them up normal.


	25. Uncomfortable Truths

Nori suppressed laughter as he watched his sister's irritated face at the fact it was Fima that entered the room.

An efficient secret keeper and healer, Fima was the first call of any of the Hidden Mountain who had run into trouble. Nori had thought nothing of hanging the yellow knot of thread she had given him in place of the red that hung normally in Dori's window still, and now she once more cared for Dori, tapping salves gently to each blister, and his shoulders are shaking but, he can't help it.

His sister looks so ticked, holding his sister-son so close while he clutches a top that looks a little scratched up.

Nori thinks he'll slip down to her little home and gather up some things she needs, hanging a blue knot in the window that looks like a sun next to the red, and use some of his own coin to insure that his sister's rent is all caught up for the next few weeks, and he forces himself to swallow his laughter.

His amusement dies when he sees Fima lean over and gently look Ori over. "He's healthy, for being born early. No sickness caught him?" she stated and his eyes lock onto his sister, sitting propped up on a bed by pillows in a fine ensemble that he is sure Tavor paid out of some high-and-mighty noble's pocket (he ignores the fact he has noble blood in his veins), reclining with her hair a woven crown upon her head.

She is every inch the noble their father was, in her bearing and her manner, but she is their mother in looks and personality. He wonders if the silk will ever be carefully wrapped back around the steel, and Nori has hope, if his sister's stubborn will ever bends, but even these thoughts do not distract him from the fact that the answer is, "Not yet. Mahal and Buzninh seem to have blessed us so far," Dori answered and Nori doesn't look away from the way she sits, still holding her near ten year old son in her arms like he's the Arkenstone.

(He remembers, distantly, the glittering white jewel that sat in the throne, carefully shaped and formed to an even more beautiful sheen, according to his mother, than when it had been found. It had been done by the greatest gem cutters in Erebor; ones who knew how to cut a gem, any gem, on instinct, and were greatly rewarded for their work on the Arkenstone.)

"More than I can say for you! Look at you, all pale and drawn! You need a week of rest, at least," Fima exclaimed, her hands resting on Dori's face, and tsking over Dori's state, but Nori sees it.

"She's always like that now," Nori stated and Dori shifted her head to give him a glare.

It is Dori's 'be quiet while I try to keep us all out of trouble' glare.

He hasn't been on the receiving end of it in years.

It gives him far more hope that the sister of his childhood is in there somewhere than in the way she sits.

"Tavor will have to do without you for a while anyway. Rest will be good for you, and try to keep walking to a minimum. Nori, try to stick around long enough to make sure she listens," Fima stated and he knows the jab for what it is.

It is a similar to the one he gets every time he enters Fima's home, bleeding, and, when asked if he'll see his sister and sister-son, he answers with a no.

It is disapproval in him, and for once, it fills him with guilt.

His eyes slowly flit about the room and then they land on the hairbrush and comb on the top of the trunk at the foot of the bed.

"Move a bit," Nori ordered as he pulled off his boots and leather things, leaving him only with his tunic and trousers and belt.

Dori had shifted and she blinked in surprise as he picked up the comb and hairbrush and finds some ribbons instead of yarn before he settles on the bed behind her, like he did when they were young and he wanted to practice special braids, and only Dori was brave enough to allow her head to be used as Nori's playground.

He gently nudges her into moving a bit so they can both be comfortable.

Only then did he begin to undo her complex work, carefully combing it out as he began to toss the yarn to the side, brushing his sister's hair as he had done when they were small.

"You're right, you know," he stated.

"You, admitting I was right? The sun and moon must have fallen from the sky!" she teased.

"Dori...you're right. I don't understand. But how do you expect me to understand when you don't explain it to me?" he continued softly, the comb moving through her slowly being unbraided hair as he pocketed the beads (the beads that are far too few and he's starting to think that he's going to have to go hunting for them if the rest haven't already gone off to do the same).

"How do you expect me to explain if you never ask?" she returned and he paused in his combing out of her hair to rest his forehead to the back of her head.

"We're really bad at talking, aren't we?" Nori asked.

"Of course we are Nori. We've never really ever  _talked_ before. We always just teased and argued," Dori responded simply.

There is a stirring in her arms and Nori went back to brushing out her hair as the newest braid part comes undone, letting her hair cascade down slightly with the action.

He heard Dori humming and smiled as a familiar childhood song began to weave through the air.

 _"Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_The maiden cries "Hale."_  
_Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_The star sighs, "Shale."_

 _"Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_Somone walks the foggy lane,_  
_Hey-high-diddle-die-oh,_  
_No one knows who'll walkabout..."_

And then she slipped back into humming, as Nori carefully undid his sister's hair and carefully braided it back up into her sleeping braid, loose and curling carefully over her shoulder. Her beard was loose, but he's carefully as he combs it up and braids it so it curls over his sister's ears, safe from tangling horribly. "Rest," Nori stated and slips off the bed, returning everything and smiling at how the ribbons keep her braid far more secure than it should be otherwise, weaving through her hair in a way only nimble thief fingers can.

She gives him a long-suffering smile, but shoos him out, even as her feet touch the ground.

Nori goes, but only after he wrings a promise from her to take it easy.

She wrings one in return.

It is a promise to return within the week, so they can try this talking thing again.

It is one he knows he'll break, even as it is made.


	26. Sapphire Set in Silver Swirls

Nori hummed softly as he walked calmly through the marketplace, searching for the second-hand jewelry shops, and even the places that sold scrap metal, looking for one bead in particular that was distinctly missing from Dori's collection of them that Nori had stored away in his pocket.

All her large beads were missing, but there was one that Nori had been surprised to realize, only now, that it was missing.

He is getting dangerously close to the more open part of the marketplace, getting dangerously close to where Dwalin son of Fundin resides, with Lady Dis and the Heir to the Exiled Throne of Erebor and every other royal-blooded noble of Erebor. It sets his teeth on edge and makes his spine itch, but still he looks, because he needs to find  _that_  bead over all others Dori was forced to give up.

He has no doubt that this is one of the first she sold for it would fetch a pretty price, and then he sees it amongst the others in a decorative basket at a stall filled with an assortment of items.

It is  _the bead,_ the one that he knows better than all others that are missing, because it is one of the few things Nori ever actually created with his own two hands that was not made of string or leather.

The sapphire, in an oval cut, was dull from lack of care, and he walked over calmly, idly picking through the baskets of beads (some of the less noticeable ones being palmed with the ease of practice), up close seeing the careful grooves, swirls he had carefully etched across the silver. At the time, as an apprentice to a silversmith (young, for an Apprentice, but his fingers were already wandering and his mother wished to keep him out of trouble), his Master had been surprised, remarking about how he had never seen "wandering fingers craft anything of their own."

While Nori had enjoyed the act of creating (once upon the time), the words (and words like it) drove him from the forge and left his fingers shaking when they never shook otherwise when he attempted to create anything after.

It is gone from the basket as soon as he's close enough and he's heading off, looking out of the corner of his eye for anyone following him, and he sees Lyir (he is the most honest con-dwarf in all of the Hidden Mountain, tickling ribs as he slides in the knife, metaphorically speaking, but he gives fair warning in his name), tossing an apple he's probably "snatched" off a stall with his pretty words, polished and shining brighter than any ruby.

He always needs to toss something as he is debating if he should practice pickpocketing or not, when he pauses and bites into it before he continues tossing, despite the fact he hates apples.

And Nori begins to slip through the crowd, disappearing in the twilight rush to get home, keeping a hand in the pocket of his sister's beads, including the one he had gone searching for. He slips through people (and lifts things on instinct in the jostling, finding those who can afford a missing item or two), and he's out of the crowd.

Without a thought, he turns and gives a feral grin when he sees it is Dwalin who follows him. He pauses to give a teasing salute and then he is off.

Dwalin gives chase, a hound chasing a fox, and Nori is ecstatic.

Only  _Dwalin_  can really give him a run for his money, allow him to practice his dodging and following skills, using both interchangeably on the guard.

The other guards are too easy to dodge, too easy to avoid.

Dwalin, probably because he’s a hardened warrior, more so than the other guards, can track him even once he loses sight of Nori and sometimes even manages to cut Nori off, forcing him to take Thief Paths instead of the lanes.

Over roofs and through courtyards, sometimes doubling back until he can hear Dwalin swearing creatively, before Nori is darting forward, eyes glinting excitedly from the challenge.

Nori slips right past Dwalin, leaving barely any breathing room between them.

Nori is almost collared, Dwalin’s fingers brushing dangerously close to his skin, but he's off and away, dashing off, inciting more of Dwalin’s snarling curses as he rushes after Nori.

The fox can hear the hound chasing after him.

And it is glorious.

But, like all things, it must eventually come to an end, and the end to this chase is when Nori darts around a corner to a dead end alleyway at the farthest reach of the Pits.

He does not pause, even as the stone wall that separates the city from the sheer drops, the pits of long dead mines, comes up, he just picks up speed.

In a fit of athleticism far more suited for an elf, Nori is up on the top of the wall, perching like one of the magpies Tavor has a deal with.

Dwalin is huffing and puffing, snarling up at Nori.

Nori just grinned back down at him, a feral edge to it still.

“You have nowhere to run, Nori of Ri,” Dwalin growled out.

He shifted slowly along the wall until he’s balanced so when he does his little trick, he won’t plummet to his death.

"Well met, Fundin's son...but I am afraid that, once again, I've slipped your nets," Nori teased, and he's over the wall, a shout from Dwalin, one of utter rage.

Nori laughs as he lands dangerously close to the edge of the pit before he is moving. He is scaling the rough rocks of the mountains before he slips into the natural cave system, and follows it back into the city proper.

Specifically back to one broken apart courtyard behind  _The Black Sword._

* * *

Nori smiles softly as he settles the bead onto the vanity that has mysteriously appeared since he was gone. He leaves the other beads as well, but the one he made he has polished before giving it back, bringing a shine to it that probably hasn’t been on it since it was first given.

Once the present is returned, he faces the bed his sister rests, Ori curled up against her, his hands fisting into the dress (Dori’s going to be angry she fell asleep in her new dress). He smiles warmly at the scene and walks over, carefully unfolding the blanket from the end, then pulling it over them, tucking it around them.

He had already locked the shutters tight, already knew he could not be seen, and he felt the distinct need to _roam_ while at the same time all he wanted to do was _stay_ , and it hurts, just a bit, but he pulls himself away from the bed, preparing to slip out when a soft voice calls, “Uncle Nori?”

He stills and turns, staring into the sleepy gaze of Ori.

The young dwarfling sniffs and shuffles a bit before he asked, “Are you going to be back in time for my birthday?”

Nori feels his throat dry out, but he smiles easily and the lies come quickly, “If I can, I’ll be there.”

(He’ll be in the city on the day of Ori’s birthday, and for that entire week, but he’ll keep away from them all, somehow.)

(He tells himself that it is not guilt that clings to his heart.)

(It frightens him when he cannot lie to himself and believe it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....
> 
> I have no clue what Nori is thinking.
> 
> *headdesks*


	27. Family (Mention of Death)

Droeur and Hameur show up in Dori's room three days after a mine tunnel collapse took out half the northern mines.

They lost three miners in the accident, injured two dozen more, and Hameur stares off into the distance while Doreur explains that the three lost were all Hameur's friends.

With the collapse, work is off for at least a week, if not longer, with everyone on half-pay, which those with large families can't afford. Dori has her knitting on her lap and Ori is sitting at her feet making sure to keep the yarn from getting tangled as she works. She stares at Hameur with his distant eyes and smiles at Ori. "Dear one, go with Droeur for a bit. Hameur, could you take over for Ori for me?" she stated.

It takes a while for Hameur to respond and Ori scrambles off, dragging Droeur out.

The yarn catches a bit on his calluses, and hers, but she continues, carefully working on the scarf. She hums a bit as she carefully switches the color of yarn out, finishing off the otherwise red scarf with a band of blue to match the one at the top of the scarf.

Hameur continues to help keep the yarn from tangling until she is done, carefully finishing off the scarf. Once done, she talked Hameur through wrapping up her skeins and then she shifts over, patting the now empty spot at her hip.

Hameur settles next to her and she carefully settles the scarf around his neck, noting that he still has mine dust on him.

She gives a sad smile in understanding, even as she tugs the scarf more firmly around his neck. Once satisfied, she lifts her hand up and runs comforting fingers through his hair and that's all it takes.

He crashes into her shoulder, his arms somehow hugging her tight, and begins to sob, whimpering out about how  _young_ they were, and Dori doesn't need him to say it.

She knows he's the one that was with the three as they died.

So Dori holds him, rocking him gently, and begins to sing softly old songs she knows from home.

When Doreur returns, a passed out Ori clinging tightly to his knit cat in his arms, it is to the sight of Hameur curled up, using lap as a pillow, the back of his head shoved into her abdomen.

She just smiles and holds her arms out to take Ori, somehow navigating him onto the bed so he didn’t disturb Hameur, Ori immediately twisting his fists into the bodice of her dress.

Droeur sits next to the, now very crowded, bed on the chair, and she gave him a comforting smile.

Droeur just smiled gratefully back.

* * *

"If one of my watchers wants to be  _useful_ , you could go get me more skeins of yarn from the marketplace and allow me to knit while you trap me to this bed! Over _one_ blister that doesn’t want to heal!" Dori snapped as she swatted Droeur's hands away from her when he tried to pick her up two days after Hameur had curled up around her.

The Dwarf miner had woken up the next morning, embarrassed and his brother had only hauled him home, after Tavor fed them all breakfast.

They had been over every day since, silently fretting over the one blister that hadn’t healed, though that was because it was on the sole of her foot, most likely, and she had issues walking with it raised off the ground when she _did_ walk, which wasn’t often.

When Droeur attempted to pick her up again, she swatted his hands a little harder with a hiss of, “I am _not_ glass!”

Droeur huffed while Tavor chuckled behind them. “It’ll take a fight. So far the only ones successful in carrying her are Dager and myself, though the why escapes us both,” Tavor warned and Dori threw up her hands slightly while Ori, who was sitting on Hameur's shoulders, laughed.

"Amad, Amad, we can't go on a picnic with Droeur and Hameur without you!" Ori exclaimed and Dori huffed and sighed, but consented to Droeur picking her up.

She was completely decent, of course, dressed in one of her old brown dresses. If she hadn’t been she would have thrown the pair of them out the window, no matter the condition of her blister on her foot.

But the consenting to being carried did not change the fact that she still hated being carried around. _Especially_ since they all did it like she was made of glass and it was starting to grate on her slowly frazzling nerves. "Getting our Jewel out into the sun then?" Tavor asked and she scowled at him as they headed for the backstairs out.

"I know you are planning something I will not like. When we come back, if I find the contents of my home somehow spread out across the living place you have on top of the tavern, I shant speak to you beyond, 'May I come back to work yet?' for at least a week," Dori warned and Tavor gave a slightly mocking bow.

"As you command, our Jewel of Jewels," Tavor answered.

Dori sighed and stared at Droeur. "You know, I am starting to get really tired of that nickname. What's next? 'Great and Shining Beacon of Mahal's Blessing'?" she snarked and Droeur laughed.

"No, no. That is far too long to use Mother Dori. We'll keep to Mother Dori, and jewel references, until the day you realize you are far too grand for these shadowed halls and depart for grander things," Hameur called back.

"What could be grander than all of you?" she asked, and it is not filled with teasing this time, Hameur having dropped back as Droeur makes his way down the stairs.

The smile she receives in return from Droeur at the words and the surprised look on Hameur’s, makes her laugh, kicking her soft booted feet slightly in amusement.

These two will be sure to keep her amused till the ends of her days, she is sure of it.

* * *

The day Dori stepped back into the tavern's main room with her tray under her arm, and a warm smile on her face, was the day that every patron cheered for their Mother Dori. Droeur and Hameur took turns professing their undying admiration for her, as well as their gratefulness that she had finally left her grand mountain hall to return to them.

She, in return, had smiled brightly at them before shoving them back with her booted foot, sending them rolling good-naturedly across the ground. "You two are a pair of slovenly wretches who don't deserve me," she answered, but she hugs them with one arm before she shoves them towards their table.

The other regulars, some she knows by name, but most she doesn't, greet her jovially. Some hug her tightly, others cry out about how their jewel, their shining jewel, has been returned to her her setting, which makes her laugh.

And, for the first time, the idea of this being where she  _belongs_ doesn't make her spine itch.

They've become family and she can think of no place else she would rather be, in the general sense of it.

But there's two faces missing, both having pulled a disappearing trick.

And she hopes they'll return in time for Ori's birthday.


	28. Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song used in this fic was written by Greenkangaroo in Chapter 48 of "Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)".
> 
> Which is her amazing and glorious Nori oneshot collection of various angst, fluff, and AUs.
> 
> (It is beautiful and wonderful.)

Dori is surprised when she opens the door to her simple, open room, home, having moved back in shortly after returning to work, to find one of the Regulars, one that was constantly tossing something from hand to hand (usually an apple, like now). "Yes, Master Dwarf?" she asked and he smiled.

It was a disarming smile, really, one that is warm and open.

It is the one Nori uses when he knows Dori is probably not going to forgive him for whatever thing he's done  _now_.

"If it is not too much trouble, Mother Dori, may I come in?" he asked and she shakes her head with a warm smile as she opens the door, stepping to the side.

He steps in and she shuts the door politely behind her, pretending she doesn't see that he's no longer tossing the apple.

For the first time in a while, Dori is embarrassed, and _ashamed,_ of her little open roomed home.

From the hearth filled with embers, waiting to be urged into a roaring fire, the two arm chairs having been replaced with a padded stool and a smaller armchair to where Ori stood on the most expensive piece of furniture (besides the heavy trunk at the foot of the bed in the corner), the oaken dining chair, fingers stained black with his charcoal  easily drawing the mountain pony they saw in the marketplace today, the inaccuracies in the depth perception, which is making the small dwarfling growl with frustration, oblivious to their guest who still has not returned to tossing his apple.

Across from blank wall was the rickety dining room table with a bench along the wall under the window where Nori's red knot hangs, and she forces a smile on her face, because suddenly she is so very ashamed of the home she built for herself, and Ori, so very ashamed that she has not done  _enough_ , somehow, that she could have done  _more_ , because there's only one bed, not two, and she had to curl around Ori in the winter so they stay warm, because she _can't_ keep the fire going all the way through the night, and she only hides away the bare minimum of coins through the year to buy him new clothes while she patches up her old ones, and she is sure that she could do  _more_ , somehow, somewhere along the way, and she twists her fingers into the rough black wool dress she is wearing, even as she calls, "Master Dwarf?"

 _That_ seems to break the spell he's under and the apple is spinning through the air as he continues to toss it once more. He turns with a smile on his face that she is sure is as false as her own. "Lyer, Mother Dori. I just need to hide out a bit. I fleeced a gentle-dwarf for all he was worth and he's right cross with me. He knows all my haunts, but he doesn't know yours, if it isn't at all an inconvenience," he answered and her smile becomes genuinely fondly exasperated.

"None at all. The stew will be ready soon. One more for lunch than," she answered and focused on Ori, who was still trying to get the fine charcoal lines to work properly and become the pony like it should be.

"Ori, time to wash up for lunch," she stated, not surprised in the slightest when he doesn't respond. She waits for another snarl of frustration, the charcoal being lifted from the wall and he's in her arms.

"Time to wash for lunch," she repeated when he fussed and whined about needing to finish his drawing.

But with deft fingers, she plucked the charcoal from his hand and set it with the rest in the small basket she had woven herself for his charcoal and plunked him down into the kitchen on a small stool and in front of the washing basin. She undid the simple belt and tugged the tunic off, because the cuffs were stained black. She sighs over it and leaves him to scrub his hands, shaking her head over the fact that he is huffing about the cold of it.

But she dries off his hands and tugs a new tunic over his head, teasing until Ori is giggling while she slips the belt around his middle, and she's sending out out of the kitchen, back into the main room. "Lyer!" Ori squeals out as he enters the room and she has no doubt he'll be thoroughly distracted until she has the stew finished.

She carefully ladles servings into three sturdy bowls the spoons already there before, with a handful of rags, she lifts the pot off the fire and settles it on the warm stone that will keep it from growing cold before settling the lid over it to help insure that little to no heat escapes the confines permanently.

The stew will keep, if regularly watched, for 24 hours, before it must be done away with, or risk getting Ori sick. She prefers jams and bread for this reason, but she focuses on the bread she bought, dark brown with a hard crust, and she slices through it with her sharpest knife (that she  _knows_ Nori stole, but she isn't about to give it back or have him return it) three times, setting the bread on plates, omitting Ori's.

For Ori, she carefully slices the crust off of the bread and crumbles the crust into his bowl, stirring it up before she carefully sets the crustless bread onto the plate, next to the bowl, slipping the bread back into the bread box.

She walks out with two bowls, telling Lyer to bring over the chair to sit on so he's out of sight from the window, before she goes to collect her food. She settles on the bench and urges Ori onto her lap while she urges him to eat.

They talk, Lyer asking about why he hadn't gotten a knit work.

Her response was easy. "Because you haven't been around lately," she retorted and pressed a kiss to Ori's hair before she smiles over his polished off bowl and missing bread. He wants more stew, more bread as well in fact, and she goes to retrieve him seconds as she sets her own bowl in the sink, ignoring how she, too, would like seconds.

She cuts off another slice of bread and ladles in more stew, and soon she has Ori eating more. "He's going to grow soon," Lyer stated.

She smiles at that and nods. "Yes, probably," she answered and nuzzled her nose into his cheek, earning a giggled out, "Amad!"

Once lunch was finished, Lyer insisted on doing the dishes, so Dori just spread out one of the furs in front of the hearth, between the padded stool and the chair, and she settles on the stool with her knitting while Ori worked on his Common.

Two hours later, she has half of the knit drawstring bag done, and Lyer is gone, never realizing that it is his present she's been working on as she gently corrected Ori's pronunciation, leaving the lessons after half an hour by telling Lyer that Ori is behind in his cant, and that is enough to have the always smiling thief to settle next to Ori on the rug and teaching him the songs that will light the way in the shadowy world of thieves and murderers and cons.

It makes Dori's spine itch that Ori  _must_ know (and that old shame comes back, that sick feeling that she's somehow  _failed_ Ori, despite the fact he's happy and healthy) the cant so he knows when he's in danger, no matter what language is used.

When they come home that night, there is a basket of oranges, expensive things, next to the basket that has Ori's charcoal.

The next night, she gives Lyer his knit, drawing-string, money purse, a beautiful thing of midnight blue and gray.

Lyer starts coming over more often and his smiles start becoming more genuine, until there is no falseness to them at all.

And each of his visits is punctuated by a basket of some sort of food showing up to the basket next to Ori’s charcoal.

* * *

Dori is not so surprised when Droeur and Hameur show up one day, or night as it were. She knew for a fact that the brothers would have to know, as Ori had directed Droeur to his home to collect the knit cat.

What was surprising was Droeur supporting an injured Hameur in the twilight hours on her evening off, and she’s ushering them inside before any guards could come on her street.

She gets her, meager, medical supplies from the room that is really a closet and comes back out. She pumps water from the sink into one of her small lidded pots and settles it into the embers of her living room hearth to heat up the water, muttering things about idiots and morons that have no sense in their fool heads.

She cleans away the blood and sighs over the injuries and bandages up the worst, but doesn’t ask why they didn’t go to a healer for all of this. She _knows_ why they didn’t, because while they have no young son to take care of, they are barely better off than her.

When she’s finished caring for Hameur and she scrubs her the pot clean, she opens her trunk and pulls out every spare blanket and fur she can find, which is not much. Today was washing day, but that doesn’t change the fact most of her blankets and furs (what little she can afford) are on the bed.

She settles them on the ground before the hearth, demands boots be left by the door and all but shoves them onto the makeshift bed, which they obey with teasing words falling out of their lips, but she tucks them in, after making sure their mirrored scarves won’t choke them in the night. She is cautious and gentle and sighs over the bruise that is blooming over Hameur’s face as he slips off before Droeur.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

“Someone said something they shouldn’t have,” Droeur answered.

“Will I have to worry about guards?”

“Not tonight.”

Dori accepts this and makes sure that the oatmeal that is soaking is enough for tomorrow, but she doesn’t know if the pair will still be there when breakfast is served. She knits for a while, smiling as the familiar cardigan pattern takes shape under her fingers and knitting needles. She is not surprised, because if she is knitting in the faint light of glowing embers, it is going to be a cardigan.

(Nori’s cardigans are _always_ getting _destroyed_ somehow, to the point where she almost makes something new, but Nori always looks so Mahal-cursed apologetic, that she always makes another.)

They click softly and she hums as she works, and then the light is brightening outside. She shakes her head a bit before she carefully settles her project to the side and sighs over the fact she’s still dressed in yesterday’s clothes before she checks on Ori, who snuffles a bit before settling back into sleep.

She frowns in concern, but the sound of shifting behind her has her look to the brothers, who still when she stares at them.

But she has them up and she folds the blankets and furs up, replacing them in the trunk, and quietly informs them of where the communal is.

They knock on her window as they walk and wave, but do not come in, or ask for her to open her door. She goes to her door anyway, opening it so she can wave at their backs with a smile in the cold of the morning.

She goes back inside to urge Ori awake, smiling when he grumbles at her, but brightens when she tells him there is oatmeal with some fresh blueberries waiting for him.

When skeins of yarn appear in her home the following night after work she starts to plan Yule gifts.

* * *

Dager shows up next when Dori still has her hair half-done and she mutters, “I’d give you all keys, but that costs money.”

“Is that permission for us to use our lock picks than Jewel of Jewels?” Dager answered, which got a sighed out, “You’d use them whether I gave my permission or not.”

Dager only smiles in response. She sighs and shakes her head, and gives him breakfast, which is oatmeal garnished with dried fruit that Ori digs into eagerly. Dager eats politely and she serves them all tea with it, though it is watery and little better that flavored water. She and Dager talk about the market.

“There’s a string of ponies that came in yesterday. Fine stock,” Dager stated.

She looked up from where she was urging Ori to eat more, though he was fussing and refusing, and she sighed. “Yes, they were. Thinking of becoming a trader Dager?” she answered.

“I was thinking of roaming, actually,” Dager answered.

“Whatever for, Dager?” she responded, a warm smile on her face as Ori began to _eat_.

When she got no response, she looked up to see Dager, gentle-thief Dager, staring at her and Ori like she was some lost treasure that he would do _anything_ to get back.

She nearly startled back at the look on his face. “Master Dager?” she called softly and he shook his head slightly.

“Sorry Jewel of Jewels. Old memories best forgotten, truly,” he answered and gave a slight cough, which drew Ori’s attention to him.

“Mister Dager?” he called, but all he got in return was a shake of his head.

“Best finish your oatmeal little Ori,” Dager said and Dori smiles as Ori finishes it off, but he shoves away the bowl, wiggling impatiently, his hair brushed but unbraided and she sighs and shakes her head, hair fluttering with the movement.

She sets him on the floor and is unsurprised when he rushes to Dager and tries to clamber into the elderly Dwarf’s lap.

She has no idea how old the Dwarf is, but she knows he’s getting on in years. He could be pushing 240, maybe even more.

She’s heard of them, the Dwarves that live to be over _300_ , but it is rarer than finding a vein of mithril. She collects their things and sets them into the sink to soak and gets a damp cloth to wipe the stickiness off of Ori with a sigh, humming a soft song as she did so.

Once that is done, she lays out the fur in front of the hearth and she gets her new project, a blanket, out of the trunk, along with the old, placing neatly folded cardigan on top of the trunk. With her project in her hands, knitting needles and baskets of yarn she has turned into _balls_ of yarns instead of _skeins_ , she settles on the stool, shifting her patched skirts until she is comfortable.

Only then does she begin to sing with Ori the counting songs in Common while she works on the blanket for Yule, while Dager sits on the chair with a pipe and Ori sits at her feet on the fur, rolling her beads across the floor off the fur in time with the counting song.

She thinks she’ll buy a string of cheap beads so he can have more to play with next time she gets some spare coin…if Ori doesn’t need new clothes.

“Three in the tree where the birds sing high,” she corrected gently, the words twisting from her lips like knots and she misses Khuzdul, but Ori needs to learn Common.

Ori lets out a growl of frustration and she pauses in her knitting, shushing him gently. “Your uncle was slow to learn too, Ori, don’t you fret,” she answered, running a gently hand through his hair before she settled back more on her stool, continuing with her knitting, the creation coming fast as Ori hummed the songs lowly instead of singing them, getting a feel for the odd tune.

“Enough of that now. Come here, lad, I’ll teach you a different song,” Dager cut in, and Ori goes willingly and settles on Dager’s knee.

Immediately, the old man begins to bounce Ori on his knee (distantly, Dori can remember her own father doing to the same with her when she was so very small, when he came to be with _them_ for a time instead of with his wife and children by marriage) and sing, _"Way, hey, over the hill, the fox he sleeps and the crow is still, but does the magpie care a whit? not for the dark, no, not a bit- way hey, over the hill, the king his crown is ruby short, and flies the magpie to the north, and to him every door is shut- way, hey, over the hill, castle quiet, guard is still, and magpie flies back to his nest to give his nestlings ruby rest..."_

Dori smiles as Ori begins to sing along and she sits for a while. She remembers, later, after lunch has been served and she needs to get ready for work, that she never did finish her braids.

Toys for Ori start just appearing in their home, on occasion.

(She’s not sure if she finds the food or the toys the greatest things to find unexpectedly in her home.)

* * *

Dori raises an eyebrow when Tavor stands at her door, her working braid over her shoulder. “Come in,” she stated and he steps in.

Tavor sits down as Dori fusses over Ori, trying to get him to finish his dinner before she walks to work. “I was wondering if you would let me throw Ori a birthday party in the tavern,” he stated and she looked up in surprise.

“What?”

“A birthday party, in the tavern. There’s also a Yule party. For the Regulars and such. He’ll be perfectly safe both times,” Tavor answered.

Ori is quivering under her hands and she can’t say no.

She smiles at him and nods. “That’s lovely, thank you.”

“Great. When’s his birthday?” Tavor asked and Dori laughs.

She laughs long and loudly, the sound echoing about to the point that Ori has to explain he was born on Yule, the best gift his mother ever received, but they often celebrated it the week after so all the festivities were out of everyone’s systems, though she would rather celebrate his birthday on his birthday, because it was more important.

“How about a week after Yule, I give you a birthday party?” Tavor asked and Ori giggled while he nodded in agreement.

Dori smiled and pressed a kiss to Ori’s head before she took his plate, quietly setting the plates in to soak.

She’d wash them when she got home.

“Time for work now,” she called, once she cleaned her hands off a bit, and lifted Ori up onto her hip with a smile.

Tavor smiles and walks them back to his tavern, and Dori doesn’t ask why he wasn’t already there.

She knows she’d never get an answer.

It is a quiet night, but it is nearly empty of those she calls family, so she makes Ori swear and promise to her that he’ll stay with Mesi.

He does, and he, somehow curls up, asleep, before she can worry that he’ll sneak out anyway.

It is, of course, the lack of those she calls family that should have told her that things would not go well this night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me most of Valentine's Day to write.
> 
> That might be why this chapter is so fluffy and angsty.
> 
> And long.
> 
> It is 3,273 words. I believe that this is, officially, my longest chapter ever.


	29. Gentle (Violence, Semi-Graphic)

“Tavor, I’ll be _fine_ ,” Dori stated as she bundled Ori up under her shawl.

The night had turned a large amount of business, but the lack of her adopted kin in the place and the strangers in their booths (and the strangers who had no respect for her, who called her “wench” and smacked her hard enough on her seat to get a yelp and to have her jumping away) had led to her just wanting to _go_.

She wanted to escape the tavern and she wanted to go home.

She wanted to scrub the feeling of today off her skin and she wanted to just pretend that it didn’t all happen, and she wanted to just curl up and _cry_ because she was over with this, she was _done_ with it all, she thought all this old shame was buried deep within her, deep within her heart, never to thought of again, but between the various Dwarves that had come over and seen her tiny home, and _tonight_ , it sits like bile in the back of her throat.

“I would really rather prefer you to stay, or at least wait for me to walk you home,” Tavor stated and she wrapped her arm more securely around Ori, still hidden in her shawl, his breath puffing softly against her neck.

“I’ll be fine,” Dori reiterated and she sighed before she gently bopped Tavor upside the head.

Tavor sighed. “I don’t like it,” he stated, and she huffed.

“Dislike all you like, I am going _home_ , or as close a one I can get right now. I am going to scrub off a layer of my skin, and I am going to sleep and hope Ori lets me sleep for a few more hours than normal,” she answered softly and he sighed.

“Fine. Keep to the lighted paths?” he requested softly.

“Always. Good night Tavor,” she responded, patting his shoulder gently before she walked towards the kitchen.

“Good night Mother Dori. Keep safe,” Tavor stated and she nodded as she headed through, smiling at Mesi.

“Night Mesi,” she stated and Mesi smiled back.

He then reached out and tugged at her shawl a bit. “Stay?” Mesi questioned and she shook her head.

“Home,” she answered and Mesi huffed a bit before letting her go.

Dori tucked her shawl around Ori more, making sure he was covered and left. She slipped through lighted lanes and focused on the world around her, before halting at the stretch of shadows two housing blocks over from her home. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she turned away, heading down one of the other lanes, one she did not know as well, but it was better lighted.

She grit her teeth and went along the long way, not willing to risk the total darkness of that area, not like Nori (or Harmem or the others, she was sure) who could fight blind. She would have to wait for them to touch her to hit them, and then she would be likely to harm a building.

In this unfamiliar place, she was on guard. Ori made a soft snuffling noise against her neck and that doesn’t take her off guard. But when she crosses near an alley, a hand reaches for the side with Ori and she spins away, her back touching the wall of the building, her arm up in a defensive position.

One of the strangers…two of them, in fact, step out. She is prepared for one, and she shifts slightly and glares. “First one to come into arm’s reach is going to find it a lot harder to steal anything,” she warned.

The first laughs and does.

Her hand snaps out and she twists and doesn’t stop until she hears the snapping _crack_ of bones breaking, even as she uses her protected position to swing the first Dwarf into the second so their heads crack against each other hard enough to making them a bit dizzy.

She is uncaring of the cries of pain, carefully reeling in every dark desire to just take her booted foot to their faces until they cave in as she stares down at them, her back still to the wall.

She has turned to stone, the still of the air around her making their whimpers of pain _louder_ , somehow, and she looks up as she hears running.

She tenses briefly and relaxes instantly as Mesi rushes forward, stumbling a bit as he rushes to her side. “Are you all right?” he asked and she looks up, a warm smile on her face.

“Quite. Walk me home?” she inquired and he nods, and, as they pass the two Dwarves, Dori _accidentally_ slams her foot down onto the second Dwarf’s hand.

After _accidentally_ walking over where he's lying, just now starting to stir from her use of his partner in crime as a blunt object to beat on other Dwarves with.

Mesi doesn’t even twitch and begins to chat with her about jam-making, but he’s really not all that good at it, but he thinks Droeur and Hameur know someone who _is_ and Dori asks to get to know this mysterious Dwarf later.

Both pointedly ignore the cries of pain, as well as the curses of vengeance behind them.

“Be safe?” she asks, once Mesi has seen her to her door.

“Always, Mother Dori,” he responded softly, and then he’s off into the dark of the mountain city in which they dwell.

She hopes he gets a good catch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is probably never going to be explained, but Tavor is the Head of the Hidden Mountain.
> 
> The Hidden Mountain is, specifically, Tavor's Thieves' Guild (for lack of anything better to call it).
> 
> It isn't really a guild, but there are different "mountains" for each place, some not in mountains at all, and they often have alliances with "forests" and "towns".
> 
> Oh, and "guilds," too, but those are a bit rarer, alliance wise.
> 
> (Yes, Dwarf thieves will sometimes ally themselves with Elf thieves. They consider it a great source of amusement.)
> 
> (And "guilds" is Hobbits. There is one in the Shire. They call it the 'Underwater Basket-weaving Guild'. No I am not joking. It is made up of a grand total of six Hobbits. They are all Tooks or Brandybucks. Three guesses, and the first two don't count, over who in LotR is part of that little Guild when they are all adorable and cute.)
> 
> Also, I cannot be nice to Dori for long.
> 
> I'm almost sorry.
> 
> _Almost_.


	30. Yule Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I actually have no clue how to celebrate the actual Yule.
> 
> I apologize. (I couldn't call it Christmas because...they aren't Christians. They follow...Mahal and his Wife/Consort/Lady, and Eru, and, maybe, the rest of the Valar. But the family bonding was the important part, so I did my best.)

Dori sighed as she carefully settled the last present into her basket before she smiled at Ori. "You have your presents dear one?" she asked.

"Yes Amad," Ori answered, holding his carefully wrapped presents tightly to his chest.

He was dressed as warmly as she could make him and she knelt down to carefully tuck his scarf more firmly around his neck, when she felt his mitten covered hand touch her cheek. "Amad, you’re thinner," he stated, and Dori merely smiled at him before she pressed a kiss to his forehead.

She did not try to correct him and merely tugged a slightly too large hat onto his head.

Winter had come fast and hard to the Blue Mountains, making food difficult to be found be those with money, and harder with those who did not. Tavor would send a small pot of leftover whatever with her every night by way of Mesi just carrying it for her to her home, though she had rolled her eyes over that. She could carry the pot just fine and it settled into her warm kitchen next to her pot of stew or porridge or whatever else she had keeping, though it was slowly running out. But Dori smiled and she nuzzled Ori's nose with her cheek before she carefully stood up.

Ori wrapped the fingers of his free hand into her thick gray skirt and Dori smiled before she headed for the door, Ori easily keeping up with her. She opened it with the customary jiggling of the lock, swinging it open to find Dager waiting on the other side. "Dager!" she greeted warmly and Ori giggled a bit as the elderly thief knelt down to carefully lift Ori up into his arms.

Ori giggled and clung fiercely to Dager's cardigan, and she smiled. Dager carefully held his free arm out to her and she carefully shut the door behind them, locking up, before she balanced her basket on her hip and accepted the arm. "You know, if everyone keeps walking me everywhere, I am going to get so very jealous when everyone gets busy again. Why, just yesterday Lyer took me to the market," she stated.

"Oh, dear jewel, we shall never be too busy for you," Dager answered lowly and she laughed, carefully lifting her skirts slightly so she didn't tread on them as they headed through the lanes to the tavern that was closed for Yule.

* * *

Dori smiled as the Regulars, some of which she did not know the name of, immediately greeted the three of them. She laughed and allowed them to carry the basket away to rest with the rest, and they took Ori's presents too, though he fought a bit before he relinquished them.

Lyer appeared after she had finished hanging her things up on the hooks waiting for her, guiding her to where a wingbacked chair waited for her by the blazing hearth, and the minute she was sitting, he worked on getting her boots off, leaving thick knit socks she had made herself behind.

Lyer set them on the hearth, next to the other boots, while one of the other Regulars, a soft-faced thief with the smile of one of the Maia, settled a quilt over her lap. "I know you; dark ale and chicken, when we have it," she stated.

"Sori, Mother Dori," he answered and she gave a nod.

"Sori. I'll remember that," she stated and there was soft thumps of feet. Sori immediately shifted out of the way so Ori could clamber up into her lap, or he would have, if Sori hadn't carefully scooped him up to settle the boy on Dori's lap, so as to keep the quilt from being assaulted by dirty boots. She smiled as she undid each buckle, Lyer easily setting them down and she laughed over the kisses Ori slopped through her beard before he slipped off, over the arm and ran back over to where some of the other lads were playing some sort of game that involved dice.

A brown haired Dwarf easily kept Ori from accidentally interfering with the game. "That's Drumur, that's got Ori. He had a son, but...less said, better. He'll as soon spit at Thorin as steal him blind," Sori explained.

Dori raised a questioning eyebrow at Sori and he shrugged. "Lost his son when Erebor was attacked. He doesn't like to talk about it...unless really deep in his cups and you're the one dragging him home," he explained and she nodded in understanding.

Many of the Exiles of Erebor despised the royal family, blaming them for the dragon, for losing their home.

For losing all that gold.

The list went on, for a city could not hold the whole of an exiled peoples, especially when they splintered and dispersed themselves throughout the cities of Dwarves and Men. Some families broke apart, some fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters,  _died_  on the road, and with the dropping birth rate...

"Mother Dori?" a voice called and she blinked a bit before she smiled up at Lyer.

"Sorry. What's wrong Lyer?" she asked, pretending she wasn't shocked to see Lyer's long hair.

He smiled and held out a comb and brush, carefully letting his ties and beads drop into her lap, on the quilt. "Braid my hair Mother Dori?" he asked.

She nodded and waved him down in front of her before she began to run a comb through his hair, undoing each of the small knots, the brush going next, and once done, she begins to braid his hair, muttering things about knowing what he likes since he's always shifting his hairstyle. He chuckles, but her fingers work through his thick, if slightly brittle feeling, hair. She twists the braids carefully, slipping the beads back in and then it is all done, and she gently tapped his shoulder. Lyer stood and headed off.

She shook her head slightly at that and settled comfortably back in her chair, watching the games being played. Dager joined her shortly after she began to watch the game, puffing a bit on his pipe, and she hummed softly, as she relaxed into the chair.

She barely noticed as she slipped into a light doze until Ori was clambering up onto her lap, eager to tell her about how the feast was starting.

* * *

Ori stared at the presents piled in front of him with something akin to awe.

His Amad was carefully twisting her fingers through his hair, but in that lazy way she did when she was tired and all she wanted to do was take a nap, but was staying awake for one silly reason or another. He didn’t always understand his Amad’s reasonings for anything, but he knew that she loved him, even when he screamed at her, which happened less now.

Mostly because he screamed into pillows.

Even now, he twisted his fingers into her skirts, making soft sounds of surprise as he stared at all the presents. “Someone is going to have to hand him one,” Amad murmured softly and he nodded weakly.

There was a soft laugh and Lyer handed him one, explaining that it was from him.

Ori took it and tugged at the thread holding the brown paper closed before Dager flipped out one of his knives and cut through one of the strings, easily avoiding Ori’s fingers, and it came undone in Ori’s hands.

“What do you have?” Amad pressed softly and Ori carefully removed the book from the paper, holding it up.

“But…it in squiggles,” Ori protested and she smiled a bit as she touched the title of the book.

“No, dear, not squiggles. Common. They have a writing system called the alphabet,” his mother explained gently.

“Looks like squiggles,” Ori mumbled and his Amad laughed.

“Yes, yes it does. You should thank Lyer,” she stated and Lyer laughed nervously as Ori stared up at him, widening his eyes slightly as Uncle Nori had taught him, along with the tiny head tilt that made him look vulnerable while he hugged the book to his chest.

“Thank you Mister Lyer,” he stated and Lyer immediately began to blush and fumble over his words before he looked away.

Ori merely looked up at his mother, who smiled at him and he carefully placed the book in her lap.

The presents continued.

Ori got a coat that was too big for him, but had Tavor’s knots decorating it all over, and another pair of boots, and more books, and a toy dragon that made his Amad pale, just a bit, and look like she wanted to run. He decided he would hide the wooden dragon somewhere, but he knew that one of the rough dwarves (Samur) had gotten it for him because Drumur hit him, hard, upside the head.

(Ori, distantly, remembers the tales his mother told him, of Smaug the Terrible and how he swept down on Erebor, and drove them from their home, and he thinks he understands.)

Amad got lots of yarn, but also a thick warm coat that had knots embroidered along the cuffs and collar and hem, along with the buttons themselves being knots. Tavor’s knots specifically, and they got presents and such that went around.

Amad gave them all things she knit, apologizing if something didn’t fit, but most were on the slightly too big size over being too small, if it was clothes at all that could be measured like that. Most got scarves or blankets, the scarves make Droeur and Hameur pout.

But once all the presents were passed out and opened, Ori clambered into Amad’s lap, curling up in her embrace, shoving the offered plate of honey cake away, burying his head into his mother’s shoulder instead.

He was tired now and wished to go to sleep.

And then his mother’s fingers were twisting through his hair and she began to sing softly,  _“Hush my young one, hush my dear,  
Ease your gentle tears, for I am here._

 _“Just call my name and I shall come,_  
_Through driving rain and frozen hail,_  
_And silver snows of despair._

_“Hush my young one, hush my dear,  
Ease your gentle tears, for I am here._

_“If you need me, I shall find you,_  
_Through burning fires, and forests of shadows,_  
_Over rivers deep and cold…_ ”

Ori slipped into sleep as his mother’s made up words swirled around him.

Dori followed shortly after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like hair braiding, okay?
> 
> Also...OH DEAR GOODNESS!!!
> 
> The first side chapter is going to be posted right after I post this and it is going to have nothing to do with Dori's first meeting with Tavor!
> 
> But it is finally going to be posted. (Probably because I was writing this.)


	31. Marketplace Meeting

Dori carefully shifted Ori on her hip, looking over the meager selection of food in her price range, humming comfortingly to a dozing Ori, having brought him out during his naptime on purpose to keep him from fussing. She resisted the urge to hiss in irritation over it all and she felt someone tug at her skirts.

She looked down and was surprised to find herself staring down at Fili, Kili, and Gimli, Fili having been the one to tug on her skirt, and he was holding Kili’s hand, while Kili held Gimli’s. It would be adorable, if she didn’t know for a fact that their parents would all be worrying about them. “What are you three doing here?” she asked gently, already kneeling down to get a closer look at them.

“I lost Amad,” Fili stated and Dori immediately notices how sleepy Gimli looks and how Kili is even rubbing his eyes and she really wishes she had another pair of hands when, like magic, Lyer is there, at her shoulder.

“Mother Dori, is there anything wrong?” he asked, earning stares from Fili and Kili, though Gimli just grumped a bit, his beard coming in thicker than Ori’s, or Kili’s.

In fact…Ori had a thicker beard than Kili and Dori nodded before she smiled at the children. “Kili, Fili, Gimli, this is Lyer. He’s a very precious person to me, and he’s going to help me find your Amad…or Dwalin. Whoever I find first, all right?” Dori stated smiling a bit when she felt Ori whine and shift a bit in her grasp.

“Now, I shall carry Gimli and Lyer will carry you and Kili, alright Fili?” she stated, and Fili nodded tiredly and Dori immediately began to urge Gimli into her free arm, having to leave her basket behind it seemed if she wanted to keep the children safe in her arms, only to find Fili had grabbed it. He was careful with it as he held onto Lyer, the con-dwarf already with Kili on his hip, and Fili was able to hold on.

With some difficulty, Dori stood up and swayed a bit as she did so. Lyer carefully pressed a shoulder to her back and she turned with a smile. “Were you serious about Dwalin?” Lyer asked.

“Yes,” she stated.

Lyer whined lowly at that and she laughed a bit as they began to make their way through the market. Dori walked close to Lyer so he wouldn’t be arrested and she eventually found the side courtyard with the fountain that the children had come from before, but she couldn’t remember which one was theirs. She let out a low sigh and turned slightly, searching for any she knew, when Lyer suddenly looked thoughtful.

“Mother Dori, let’s sit down,” he stated and ushered her to one of the frozen benches.

Lyer hummed a bit as she sat down with some relief, settling Ori and Gimli next to her on the bench, wrapping her shawl firmly around the pair. She was surprised when Fili placed the basket in her lap and settled next to her, head on her lap and clung to Kili once he was rested on the bench, also using her lap as pillow, similar to how Ori and Gimli moved themselves, cuddling together as well.

Lyer smiled and unhooked his own shawl to tuck around Fili and Kili like Dori had done for Gimli and Ori. “I’ll go searching. You wait here, okay?” Lyer stated and was gone before she could give her consent.

She sighed and began to play, gently, with the children’s hair, Fili whining and kicking slightly. “Shush, shush, little ones, shush, shush,” she soothed, but Fili shook his head.

She sighed softly and then remembered a song her mother used to sing to her.

 _“Dear ones, dear ones,_  
_Can’t you hear,_  
_Cling-clang-clinging far below?_

 _“Cling-clang-cling, cling-clang-cling,_  
_The miners go,_  
_Never resting till it goes ‘ping.’_

 _“Dear ones, dear ones,_  
_Can’t you hear,_  
_Ping-pang-pinging down the road?_

 _“Ping-pang-ping, ping-pang-ping,_  
_The gem-cutters go,_  
_Never resting till it goes ‘ding.’_

 _“Dear ones, dear one,_  
_Can’t you hear,_  
_Ding-dang-dinging up above?_

 _“Ding-dang-ding, ding-dang-ding,_  
_The great smiths go,_  
_Never resting till all goes ‘cling’…”_

Dori smiled a bit as Kili wrapped his fist in her skirts, not even twitching as he chewed on some of his hair.

“Amad sings that,” Fili slurred and Dori tucked the shawl more around him and his brother.

“Not surprised. It is a cradle song of Erebor,” Dori answered.

Fili was silent and Dori let out a sigh before she looked around to find that Lyer was still gone.

“I have such a bad feeling about this,” she murmured and twisted her fingers lightly through Ori’s hair, smiling how Gimli clung to Ori as if Ori was his personal stuffed toy and Dori just kept an eye out for anyone who could harm them.

So she wasn’t expecting Lyer to come running through the courtyard with a shouted, “Found Dwalin!” before he was taking off down some alleyway.

And then there was shouting.

Loud enraged shouting and she covered her face with a sigh.

She was going to have _words_ with Lyer.

Later.

When Dwalin rushed into the courtyard, he sent guards out, but was stopped short going himself by Dori calling, “I have Fili, Kili, and Gimli.”

* * *

Ori let out a tired whine as he buried his face into Amad’s shoulder. He was tired and he just wanted Amad to stop shifting him so much.

Since Dwalin came running in, bellowing, Ori hadn’t been able to sleep. Gimli’s Adad had smothered Gimli in kisses, which had made Gimli fussy and Fili and Kili’s Amad had grabbed her sons and shook them while upset with them and hugging them and their Adad who wasn’t their Adad glowered at them.

“Amad,” he whined.

“Yes dear?” she questioned.

“Happy just to have you,” Ori mumbled before he pressed a kiss to her beard, getting hair in his mouth.

She kissed his forehead in return. “Happy to have you too, my dear one,” she answered softly and he buried his head into her neck.

And then his Amad gave her happy gasp of, “Harmem!”

And Ori decided that maybe he could make room for Harmem too.

(Uncle Nori was, as always, a given.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote another song.
> 
> I am sorry.


	32. Faltering

Ori yawned as he settled more into Harmem's arms while Amad fussed softly. "How do you get these injuries? Your cheek is practically  _black_! How...just...how?" Amad stated, but Ori grumbles lowly and buries his face into Harmem's chest.

"Dori, I'll heal," Harmem stated, his voice making his chest rumble and it itches Ori's nose, which makes him whine and twist slightly, rubbing his nose on the soft tunic that Harmem wears under all his layers.

It earns Ori a chuckle, but it makes him squirm more as it still tickles his nose unpleasently. "I  _know_  it will heal! I am not a simpleton! And that didn't answer my question!" his mother argued and she is sure she would shake Harmem, like she shakes Uncle Nori when he's being "impossible", if he wasn't holding Ori, and there is a knock on the door.

There is the sound of a rag being thrown into her small pot of water and a huff, followed by a soft rustle of skirts. "We are not finished with this conversation," Amad warned and Ori wrapped his fingers in Harmem's tunic, even as the dark-haired and dark-eyed Dwarf shifted Ori in his group.

 _"Hush, hush, don't you fear,_  
_Hush, hush, little one,_  
_Hush, hush, I am here,_  
_Hush, hush, I won’t run..."_

The voice was unfamiliar, but warm and rolling, low and gentle. It wasn't a song Ori knew, but it lulled him as easily as his Amad's songs, and he snuffled before he curled up tighter, even as he heard Lyer's voice, but it wasn't enough to keep him awake.

He tightened his grip on Harmem's tunic and falls asleep.

* * *

Dori is gentle as she shoves Lyer onto the stool, muttering about idiots and stupid plans. She's not really sure, exactly, what she's saying, but Lyer smiles a bit as she checks him over. She sighs over the bruise starting to bloom across his neck and she frowns, touching it gently. "What happened?" she asked.

"Don't land on Prostir. He's a wandering merchant and he grabbed me by the throat. I am  _fine_  Mother Dori," Lyer stated.

"It takes four days for bruises to show up on your skin. I know this because I've seen you punched and four days later, you get a bruise. What did he do, when, and why? Because you don't  _land_  on anyone! Lie to me again and you won't like what I do!" Dori warned and she pointedly ignored Harmem's soft chuckle behind her and she turned, pointing a finger at him.

"I'm not done with you yet Harmem! I'll...I'll..." Dori began to snap, when her world suddenly tilted and she faltered.

"Mother Dori?" Lyer questioned.

She took a deep breath and she steeled her spine. "I'll still want answers from you! Now, Lyer, you are going to sit here, quietly, and I am going to go make sure that Harmem doesn't have loose teeth," she stated and walked over to where Harmem waited. She carefully knelt down, or was going to, when her legs gave out and she found herself on the ground, the world tilting around her.

She pressed a hand to her head and she took deep breaths. "Mother Dori?" Lyer called, his hands on her shoulders and she shook her head a bit, trying to push him away, but the shaking of her head made things a bit worse.

"Lyer, get Healer Fima. Run," Harmem ordered and there was running and it took Dori a moment to notice she was lying back on the floor of her home.

"Easy Dori, easy," Harmem murmured and she wanted to demand answers, but her world was tilting, even as she lay still.

And then her world was black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I am sorry about the shortness of it.


	33. Wakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an in-between in Lyer's POV [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/687828/chapters/1290033)
> 
> This is because Family is reserved for the Family Ri's POV.
> 
> (And I do enjoy doing it that way.)

The first thing Dori realized when she woke up was that there was a weight, like a head, pushed against her knees.

The second thing she noticed as that she was on her bed and under the blanket she had knitted from all the yarn she had been gifted, making sure to use yarn from everybody in the creation, changing out the yarn at random as she knitted, careful to make sure that she didn’t lose any of it as she went, was covering her.

The third thing she noticed was the smell of stew filling the air.

She turned her head and found Harmem watching her from the chair. “At what point did ‘take care of yourself and the bratling’ change into ‘starve yourself’?” Harmem inquired and she glared warningly.

“Harmem!” came Tavor’s reprimand from the kitchen and she winced.

“Amad?” came Ori’s sleepy voice and she immediately tried to sit up.

There was the sound of boots crossing the room and Harmem was there, carefully helping her to sit up, supported on the pillows, only to find herself staring at where Lyer was curled up and a sleepy Ori was peeking over the young Dwarf's shoulder.

“Oh, drag them up here,” she grumbled and Harmem chuckled before he did just that, Lyer whining lowly before he settled his head against Dori’s side, while Ori huffed a bit.

“What dear one?” she inquired gently.

“Can we keep Lyer?” Ori asked.

“He’s not a pet,” she corrected gently, running fingers through Lyer’s mess of a mane while Harmem chuckled.

“I don’t know. He does act like a lost puppy most of the time,” Harmem mused.

Dori did not hesitate to reach up to smack him upside the head while Ori yawned. “Can we keep him anyway?” Ori mumbled, burying his face into Lyer’s neck.

She smiled and shifted to run comforting fingers through Ori’s hair. “Well, we’ll have to ask him that, but later Ori. Go back to sleep,” she soothed and he huffed and squirmed, and whined before he settled back down, quiet snores muffled against Lyer’s neck.

She smiled at the pair of them before she heard a polite cough from above and she looked up at Harmem. “You came back looking like Dwalin went at you with his knuckledusters, so I think we are both allowed to snap and snarl at each other,” she retorted.

“That’s a danger of my _craft_ , much like how a gem cutter risks shattering the very gem they work on if they do it wrong!” Harmem snapped and she gave a snort in answer, crossing her arms.

“And I’m a single, unwed, mother who has a young son to look after with the price of food rising at a frightening rate. I don’t see what that has to do with the conversation,” Dori retorted calmly.

Harmem let out a low growl and whined when a wooden spoon came out and hit him in the head. He ducked away, his knife spinning in his hand, out, and stilling just a hair’s width away from Tavor’s jugular. “Harmem, she’s had no choice. In her place, I’d feed my only child all the food I could while going without if it meant he would be able to face the day with all the energy he should,” Tavor stated and Harmem growls before he stalks away, throwing himself into the chair.

“Where is your brother?” Tavor asked as he handed her a bowl with a pointed look.

She did not argue, sipping the stew carefully from the bowl as she shrugged politely. “Hopefully not here. I’d rather he eat well this winter,” she answered and Harmem jerked slightly, though his hand was steady from where he spun his knife near carelessly as he stared into the fire.

The gloves were still on his hands.

Dori didn’t know why that made her smile fondly at the assassin, but she was broken out of her revere when she heard Tavor ask, “How can you not know?”

She refused to acknowledge the question at first, focused on her stew. However, she knew he wouldn’t let it go and when he sat down at the edge of her bed, she sighed, carefully holding the bowl in her lap.

“I…I don’t understand why he acts the way he does, why he runs away like he does, why he isn’t here. I want him here. I worry for him, constantly, terrified that one day he’s going to get grabbed by the guards in some town and lose something he can’t afford to lose. I am terrified one day he won’t come home because he’s been tossed into shallow grave and what will I tell Ori when his uncle just stops coming? Because I know…I know he doesn’t carry anything to show his tie to me. He never has, not since…not since he first started heading out. Someone did, after Mother died. Looking for him, had something that was his that tied him to me. That wasn’t one of my knit things. And he tried something he shouldn’t have. Tried, being the very important word, because he was right on one thing, in that my brother was there, but since my brother refuses to put us in danger like that. He won’t risk it. So, while I don’t understand why he goes about it the way he does, I do know why. If I don’t know where he is, I am protected on all fronts. I don’t have to put up money I don’t have for his jail time, those not under the Hidden Mountain who he’s pissed off have nothing in which to hunt me down with, and no Guard will come bother me for information that I could not possibly have, because he’s not here and we are obviously estranged. But understand it? No. My brother is next to impossible for me to understand,” she explained and shook her head a bit before she carefully ran her fingers through Lyer’s hair.

“You know, he’s quite taken with you. If you told him he had a home here, you’d probably never be rid of him,” Tavor stated.

“Why would I want to be rid of him?” she asked, looking over at Tavor.

“No reason. Just be prepared when he asks you things that will confuse you. Harmem, watch over our Mother Dori,” Tavor ordered as he headed for the door.

“I do not need watching like some child,” she retorted.

“I disagree, Mother Dori. You see, you are, literally, starving. Harmem is going to stay over the next few days and make sure you eat. You will rest, you will spend time with your son, and Lyer because I doubt he’ll be going anywhere anytime soon, and during that time you will consider moving to Summit Way. There is a lovely little house there that, you’ll find, is safer than this place, and still close to the tavern, and has neighbors who know and love you very much,” Tavor stated and left.

Dori stared out after him, then looked at Harmem. “If he tries to make me move, I will take my wooden spoon to his posterior,” she warned.

Harmem chuckled and gave a small bow, sheathing his knife as he did so.

And Dori threw a decorative pillow at his head, laughing softly as it caught him in the face.


	34. Presents and Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long.

"What is that?" Dori asked as Harmem carefully deposited four presents next to the bed.

Well, deposited _three_ next to the bed. The fourth he had left by the door, groaning about heavy it was.

Her question had Ori and Lyer both looking up from where they were playing the tile and dice game known as Flower and Scorpion at the table, having ignored Harmem when he left with a cheeky bow _and_ when he had returned.

It was a game that Harmem had not only taught them but had given them the tiles and dice in which to play with.

The pair had been absconding with the game since, with Ori voicing his desires about how he wished to find Fili, Kili, and Gimli and show them this game so they could all play together, though Dori said that it was unlikely they would be able to do that.

(She wouldn't explain class difference, not now.)

Lyer, as Tavor had predicted, became as immovable as the stones the minute Dori asked if he wished to stay with her and Ori.

He had tied another knot, this one a pale green, the minute after he said yes and hung it below Nori's red. He also set up a nest of blankets at the base of her trunk that was at the foot her bed.

(He took care of and folded up all the blankets on the foot of the bed once the dust of the floor was cleared off of them every morning before breakfast.)

Now, with two of the Hidden Mountain in her home, though they rarely shared space under her roof at the same time, and Tavor banning her from work until she at least was a bit steadier on her feet (and subtle as a mountain hints about the home he wanted her to look into, which she ignored), she was incredibly bored. So she found herself far more curious about the items Harmem had decided to bring into her home than she normally would be.

"Two are Yule presents from me. Two are from Nori," Harmem stated.

Ori abandons his game in an instant, running over to the three by the bed, even as Lyer stalks after Ori, one of the Flower and Scorpion tiles dancing across his fingers.

Ori immediately grabs one of the presents and shakes it a bit, which made Dori hide a laugh behind her hand.

“You aren’t allowed to shake the presents dear,” she stated, even as Ori inspected it while Lyer sat down behind him, his hair wild and free of his braids again.

Dori huffed and tugged at one of Lyer’s wayward locks while Ori focused on the writing that was on the bottom of the package. “Amad, it says to open yours first,” he stated, while Lyer picked up another present and shook it, which earned him a glare from Harmem.

The glare earned Harmem a smack upside the head as she walked to the door. She didn’t even pause as she hefted the present up in one hand, frowning a bit at the good weight to it.

A weapon’s weight.

She held it in one hand as she turned it over and around, noting that _this_ was in a box. Packed well too, for she heard no movement, though there was some small jangling to it, though muffled.

There is nothing written on it, and she shrugs before she walks over to the stool, holding it in her hand, though she probably should have hefted it under her arm. She settles on it and glances up when she hears Harmem make an odd sound.

Out of the corner, she can see Lyer giving her an odd look and Ori looking between Lyer and Harmem in confusion. But Harmem’s odd _er_ look has her raising an eyebrow at him. “Yes?” she questioned as she began to skillfully untie the knot Nori used to tie the present closed, carefully opening the package to find herself staring at a box that had a symbol of a well-known, and renowned, weapon-smith in the Iron Hills burned into the lid.

Her jaw dropped slightly as she settled it onto the ground while Harmem made a low whimper sound of admiration as she opened the box, a storage box, to find sitting in the custom made box, to store it, was a flail-like weapon with multiple strands on it, with heavy weights on each strand, much like a throwing weapon, one with heavy stones on a hefty leather rope she had seen in use once.

A sealed letter was seated on top of the weapon, and she broke the seal as she picked up the letter, only to realize it was a receipt with a quickly scrawled note settled on top of it.

_Dori, I know I am not the best with all of this, but I decided that, should I ever come home to roost, you’d need a way to protect yourself. And you always did love that flail of mother’s. So, I did my best. He was quite pissy over the fact that I didn’t have a drawing. Ori can open his present from me now._

She rolled her eyes at it, but smiled at the fact Nori had made sure she knew he bought the gift amusing. She understood his whys though. She folded the note and tucked it into her sleeve before she nodded to Ori. “Is that the one from Nori?” she questioned.

“Uh-huh. His knot is on it,” Ori stated and Dori nodded a bit and Ori carefully opened it.

Lyer tucked his chin on Ori’s head and hummed softly as he stared down at the fine sketching journal that was there, the binding of the sketchbook at the top of instead of to the side. Ori squeaked and touched it reverently before he rushed over to the trunk, nearly bruising Lyer’s chin in his rush to get up, and set it down on top of the trunk.

Harmem’s gift for Ori, a slingshot that was obviously carved for Ori, was met with Ori rushing to hug the assassin with a giggle and many thanks while Lyer’s hands twitched nervously. Dori snorted a bit at the reaction and tugged at Lyer’s hair gently. “Enough,” she warned and scooped up her own gift, raising an eyebrow at Harmem, who now had an armful of excited dwarfling, and Harmem nodded.

She smiled as she carefully unwrapped her present and then let out a low sound of surprise at the plain oak box sitting amongst the, mostly intact, brown paper.

She opened the box, mostly because she was curious, to find that it was, in fact, a jewelry box.

In the front half of was a small store of silver hair pins that were meant to discreetly pin her hair into place while the back half of the box was a raised, cushioned, platform where two decorative centerpiece hair pins rested.

One was made of silver of a higher quality than the regular pins while the other was made of rose-gold. Both were designed similarly, though with fine key differences in the design themselves

The silver pin had been designed in a way that reminded her of a leafless tulip, omitting the fact that the petals were much shorter so the star moonstone nestled in the center could easily catch the lamp light and make it shimmer with a milky glow while the rose-gold’s had a star sunstone that shone with an orange glow, the petals pointed instead of rounded.

(She sees Lingorm’s face as he smiles and tucks a bird’s trefoil behind her ear when they go to the grazing plains, before they were courting, right before he leans in for a kiss, surprising her greatly, with laughter in his eyes, and she wonders, now, if he was laughing at her, even as he slipped a pin into one of her braids, his first courting gift to her.)

Dori tore her eyes from the gift and looked up at Harmem, who was smiling uncertainly.

“Thank you,” she answered honestly and lifted the moonstone and silver pin up before she slid into place amongst her braids, Harmem’s smile turning bright at the movement, before urging Ori back to the game with Lyer.

(But in the back of her mind, she still smells summer air, thick in her nose, and feels the slight scratch of the bird’s feet trefoil against her skin, and wonders about laughter in the eyes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally cheated on the game Ori and Lyer are playing.
> 
>  
> 
> [Here are the rules on how to play Flower & Scorpion](http://www.domino-games.com/domino-rules/flower-scorpion-rules.html)
> 
>  
> 
> The game is believed to come from the Middle East and Harmem learned it in the Middle Earth equivalent in Middle Earth while there on business. He bought tiles and dice for it so he could teach others to play with him. He somehow turned it into a betting game.
> 
> (I don't know how, but he gets a lot of money, once he's explained all the rules and such. Thus, people will only play friendly games with him. Which is no fun for him, except when he is teaching people.)
> 
>  
> 
> [Star Sunstone](http://www.minerals.net/GemStoneImages/star-sunstone-gem-224001a.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
> [Star Moonstone](http://www.gemselect.com/photos/star-moonstone/star-moonstone-gem-327422a.jpg)


	35. The Perpetually Cheerful One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, this will only be update here, not on Live Journal.
> 
> So people aren't confused, there is a reference to a coat of arms, in a manner of speaking, called "the symbol of the Line of Telphor."
> 
> My very quick research said Broadbeams are also known as Telphor's Folk, much like how the Long Beards are also known as Durin's Folk, to reflect which of the Seven Fathers they descend from.
> 
> The Line of Telphor is the Broadbeam Royalty.
> 
> Because I just like the idea that all of the Clans have a King, omitting any that may have died out or are in the middle of a civil war with each other.

"What's wrong?" Dori asked lightly as she settled a tankard of ale in front of Droeur, having taken over the afternoon shift at Tavor's insistence, the tavern owner nervous about her being around at night now that the chill was clinging to the Blue Mountains.

It was also the condition he levied against her when she demanded the right to return to work, all the while ignoring his hints about the small home.

(She had gone to look at it, noticing that it was one of those places that was once servant quarters before the nobles moved up. It was practically connected to the tavern and she had been  _that close_ to hitting Tavor for it, but it was nice, and she was tempted to accept before she slammed that thought down, snarling at it, mentally, until it was subdued, if not completely banished from her mind.)

"The gem mine petered out. It was a small discovery, the Blue Mountains really just...it just has iron mines. Technically we mine the ore, and most of it is not that good to begin with but...with the gems gone a lot of miners are going to move on. Travelling breed we are, moving from place to place, omitting...omitting when we take to illegal mining. There's a few and there's a friend of mine, Hameur is bringing him in, but...he doesn't really have a choice. Not in this. He can't travel to better mines, his brother, younger, just got married and needs all the help he can get, especially since they've got a cousin relying on them. Ax to the head," Droeur stated.

"And a toymaker. He seemed fine to me," Dori stated as she shifted her weight so she could rest the tray on her hip, listening.

"He is, for the most part, but some days...he's not. Occasionally that area around his ax gets infected and that takes money for healers, money that he's rarely got unless he's volunteered for high-risk duty _again_ , though the infections rarely come and even rarer that he gets into fits of rage. But, you'll like this guy. Always smiling, got the cutest dimples," Droeur continued, frowning down at his tankard of ale.

"Oh, Droeur, I knew you liked me," a new voice greeted jovially and Dori turned slightly to smile at Hameur, who immediately rushed up to gently knock his head to Dori's with a cheerful, "Mother Dori," before he nudged his brother over.

"Shut up Bofur! Besides, you're in luck today! This is Mother Dori, best tavern matron in all of Ered Luin. Don't get feely, though, or Harmem will take your fingers," Droeur retorted cheerfully and Bofur chuckled lowly before he looked out at her from under his hat.

"He will do no such thing," Dori reassured, easily snapping Droeur with her towel, though not nearly as sharply as she could have and tossed it back over her shoulder.

"Behave anyway you three! Ori's at one of the tables with Lyer," she added warningly.

"Little Ori? Where's the lil' sprog?" Hameur cackled out, though he whined when his words earned a flick from her towel.

"Stop calling him that! Now, Bofur, before these pair of miscreants distract me again, what can I get you?" she stated, smiling warmly at the miner.

He was smiling at the exchange and ran a hand over his hair, under his hat, though without ever fully removing said hat. “Black beer?” he asked and she let out a low whistle.

“We should have some,” Dori responded and with carefully trained casual indifference, flipped her tray up and caught it so she could spin it around between her hands before she rolled it up her arm, across her shoulders, and caught it deftly with her other hand.

She smiled as the three clapped, Hameur putting in a few whistles before she headed over to Tavor, who was smiling warmly over them all. “Black beer?” she questioned and Tavor chuckled a bit.

“Bofur?” Tavor questioned and Dori nodded.

Tavor sighed softly and frowned a bit. “He’s been in and out of illegal mines since he was too young to work in the mines. He only comes in here when he’s in the illegal mines again,” Tavor murmured lowly as he began to pour the ale from the tap.

Dori frowned slightly at that and glanced back at Bofur who was laughing, loudly with Hameur and Droeur. “Droeur did mention the gem mine was finished,” she stated.

“It is. Here? That was a lucky find and the King was furious that it was found under Thorin’s jurisdiction, meaning he had to pay out Thorin for the find. Honorable one, that Thorin. More honor than reason, though. He paid out full to the one who discovered it, and spread the rest of the coin out across where he could, took off once he had it. Probably went to Rohan; they’ll always take Dwarvish work there, but only for trade,” Tavor explained as he began to pour out the black beer.

“A good pony goes farther than good coin,” Dori quoted as she carefully loaded up her tray.

“Who said that?” Tavor asked.

“My father,” Dori responded and headed back to the table, not even hesitating to collar Ori as he tried to run away from Lyer and balancing the energetic child on her hip once done.

“He is a little one, isn’t he?” Bofur stated and Ori pulled a face.

“I’m not little!” Ori protested rudely and he whined as Dori gave him a light tap upside the head for his tone.

“Be polite, or I am keeping you to the back!” she warned and Ori pouted mumbling, “Yes, Amad.”

She nodded and gently tapped her forehead to his. With that, she settled him on the ground and sighed as he rushed through the near empty tavern, Lyer quickly taking off after him.

Once again, his hair was a tangled mess.

“Why do I bother to braid his hair?” she asked with a huff and eyed the brothers who were trying to hide their smiles in their mugs.

“Mother Dori?” Bofur questioned, drawing her attention and earning a warm smile that had him dimpling back at her.

“Master Bofur,” she teased lightly.

“Just Bofur. What’s on the menu today?”

“Some type of meat stew,” Dori mused, skeptic confusion coloring her words.

Bofur chuckled at her words and nodded a bit. “I think my stomach can handle that,” he stated.

Dori laughed and nodded before she headed to the kitchen, taking some mugs to a group in the back before she headed into the kitchen, sending Ori and Lyer scurrying back to the out of the way table that she had put them at that was for those that wished to be left alone. “Behave,” she warned the pair of them as she slipped back into the kitchen, heading over to Mesi.

“Do you ever sleep?” Dori teased lightly and Mesi laughed.

“ _My_ home is close by,” Mesi stated and she rolled her eyes at him, even as she took the bowls of stew from him.

“Ori with somebody?” Mesi asked.

“Out front. With Lyer. I hope they haven’t burned the tavern down while I’ve been here,” Dori responded and Mesi chuckled.

“I think we’d have noticed,” Mesi stated and she nodded slightly before she turned and headed back out, dropping the stew off at the quiet conversers table before she headed over to the table with Bofur, dropping by the tavern’s bar to pick up refills for the three.

“Bofur can drop practically anyone in a drinking contest, so keep an eye on his alcohol consumption. He’s a dangerous drunk,” Tavor warned and she raised an eyebrow at Tavor.

Tavor sighed and shifted his head from side to side a bit. “Bofur is a good person. But when he’s drunk, he likes to fight. He likes to fight and he likes to win, and he usually does both when drunk,” Tavor responded and Dori huffed a bit before smacking Tavor upside the head, which earned strangled noises around the room.

“Stop being such a false diamond,” she retorted and turned in time to see Bofur carefully lift Ori up so that Ori could stand on his shoulders, hands up to support Ori’s weight, her baby boy’s eyes wide in awe.

Lyer looked half-traumatized and Bofur chuckled, even as one of Ori’s knees accidently nudged Bofur’s head. “Here you two go,” she stated and smiled at the way Bofur urged Ori to sit on his shoulders instead, Ori instantly wrapping his arms around Bofur’s head, though he kept from covering Bofur’s eyes, hands clutching at the miner's forehead.

“Good lad,” Bofur praised and pat Ori’s back before he focused on his stew.

Ori curled over Bofur’s hat, and stared at Bofur as best as he could. “Can I wear your hat?” Ori asked and Dori shook her head at the question, even as Bofur explained why Ori could not wear his hat between bites of stew, Ori pressing for an advantage, or trying to at least, while she nudged Lyer out of the way.

She was about to demand the young Dwarf to get back over to table so she could brush and braid his hair, again, when a city messenger stumbled into the tavern.

He was from the jail, and it was in the fact he wore a dark blue tunic with black trim and the symbol for the Line of Telphor in silver embroidery to mimic chains proving that. He stilled upon feeling every eye on him and cleared his throat. “Is Dori of Ri here?” he called.

“I am she,” Dori called and the messenger took a deep breath, before he stepped forward.

“Mistress Dori, I am here to inform you that Dager, known Burglar and Thief, has been captured and held. He will be transferred to the Execution Cell of the King’s Court this evening and his last request is to see you,” the messenger stated.

Dori barely registered her tray slipping from numb fingers and clattering to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love what we know of Dwarven Culture, such as the women hiding as men during travel.
> 
> It allows me to bring about the Company. (Which is fun.)
> 
> Because they're whining about not being included. Which is why they are here.
> 
> I'm not sorry.
> 
> (Also, the trick Dori does with the tray was something I watched someone do once, at a restaurant. There was a couple of kids, and they were crying, because it was late and they were tired, and so he started doing all of these tricks. The kids slowly stopped crying, and that was the last trick he did, before doing a rather comical bow to the all the applause, multiple times. It was adorable, but also took a lot of skill and made me wonder what made him want to learn how to do all of that.)


	36. Last Meetings (Technically Suicide Through Nonaction Off-Screen)

Dori stepped into the darkened jailhouse, ignoring the jeers from those that had family coming, were caught for minor crimes that would, at worst, put them into physical labor around the mountain, and glanced at the messenger who had brought her, still dressed for work over her preferred hairstyle and dress. She smiled and gave a quiet thanks before she stepped up to the desk a fine looking Dwarf, a bit portly looking, sat at, a large book before him filled with marks next to names and she tightened her shawl around her shoulders before she smiled politely at him. “Excuse me, Master Dwarf, I am here to visit Dager,” she greeted calmly, and not at all in the manner she wished to, which was in complete tears.

If she was his last request, then he was going to die. He had chosen death, chosen to let this be his last heist, and she wanted to shake him. She wanted to rip open his cell door and grab him and shake him and demand _why_ , but she wouldn’t, because she would not demean his choice. It was his and she would let him have it and grieve for him, and for the place he had filled that she had never known was there.

The Dwarf glanced up with a smirk at her, eyes trailing over her figure and lingering on her fine beard and moustache, to her simple braid over her shoulder, in a hard to grab spot, eyes resting mainly at the places where the pale lamplight made her hair gleam slightly.

This clerk did not need to know of the fine blades Lyer had tucked into there just that morning so any foolish enough to grab her by her hair would slice up their hand helped make them glimmer so. The rest was her silver hair, the stress of being a single mother and one of the Exiles of Erebor, making her hair go gray.

The clerk leaned forward and turned the book towards him, turning the pages before he turned it back around. “Make your mark on the fifth line down,” the Dwarf stated and Dori resisted the urge to frown, marking that it had his name was on the page for Cell 479 and his name was on the fifth line (Dager of Er), the four before empty of visitors, and crossed out.

She leaned forward, took up the quill, and signed _Dori of Ri_ on the line, as well as marking the time from the water clock before she set the quill back. “My apologies. I thought you were your better,” she responded and stood up normally, clasping her hands in front of her waist.

“You impudent daughter of a whore!” the clerk snarled, standing as if to strike her, when a hand with familiar knuckledusters clasped his wrist tightly.

“Enough Samri, son of Kamri,” Dwalin growled and Dori blinked in surprise.

She had not seen Samri since his mother, her father’s wife, had demanded the first courting gift from her mother in exchange for her silence over their father not being their mother’s husband.

He had been thinner then.

She said nothing and Dwalin stepped forward. “I’ll take you to him,” Dwalin stated and she smiled.

“My thanks, Dwalin son of Fundin,” she responded softly and he held his arm out to her.

She accepted it politely and walked with him, silence falling. She paused when she saw regulars, Dwalin allowing it as they chatted to her, calling her ‘Mother Dori’ easily before they moved on. “Thank you,” she responded each time she was allowed a quick visit and Dwalin merely nodded, until they got to the end of the hallway, pausing for a moment.

“I may not like them, but they deserve a visitor they know that I know about,” Dwalin murmured as he opened a door. “Watch your step,” he added and stepped to the side, holding a hand out to steady her as she entered the darkened curving stairs, thankful for the hand when she nearly slid off the end of the narrow step.

“By Mahal,” she whispered and Dwalin chuckled in agreement before they began to make their way, slowly, down, heading past two landings that held doors before Dwalin opened the door at the third landing.

“Visitor for Dager,” Dwalin stated and opened the door to a guard wearing the King’s colors.

She gave a respectful curtsy and the guard gave a polite nod before stepping to the side. “Jewel of the Black Sword?” he questioned.

“One of his many nicknames for me, yes,” Dori responded politely and stepped in at his hand wave.

“She doesn’t leave my sight,” Dwalin growled and she nearly laughed.

“I wouldn’t dream it. As his last request, she gets to sit with him in the cell,” the guard stated and began to lead them along, past cells with Dwarves who waited to be executed or rescued.

They walked until the came to where coughing could be heard and Dori let out a low sigh of, “Dager.”

“Jewel of Jewels!” Dager coughed out and the guard opened the cell and Dori didn’t hesitate to answer, curling into the shaking, protective, embrace Dager had pulled her into.

“Oh, you are a sight for me to see,” he stated softly and she quietly urged him back onto the cot that could barely be called that.

“Dager, why didn’t you just stay with us?” she asked softly and he coughed violently, his body shaking as she squeezed his free wrist, feeling the way death was clinging to him.

In his last decade and she curled against his shoulder, resting her forehead against his shoulder. “I couldn’t, my jewel. I couldn’t do that to ya, and Ori…and little Lyer. Adopting him right proper, then?” Dager asked and she smiled.

“When I think of a Name, naturally,” she whispered softly and he laughed weakly, gently running his hands over her face.

“My daughter…she looked so much like you. Without the gray. Eyes so bright, she was so…so wonderful. And I was given an option, by the king. And it would keep my family safe, except he failed. I never got them back, my family, lost them nearly as surely as my home was. Same manner to, to the same Mahal-cursed king,” Dager whispered softly, his voice shaking with grief and Dori began to run her fingers through his hair.

_"Far over the misty mountains cold,_  
 _In dungeons deep, and caverns old,_  
 _We must away, ere break of day,_  
 _To seek the pale-enchanted gold._  
  
 _The dwarves of yore cast mighty spells,_  
 _While hammers struck like ringing bells,_  
 _In the deep, where dark things sleep,_  
 _In hollow halls, beneath the fells._

_"For ancient kings and elvish lords,_  
 _There lay many a gleaming golden hoard,_  
 _They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,_  
 _To hide in gems, on hilt of sword._  
  
 _On silver necklaces they strung,_  
 _The flowering stars, on crowns they hung,_  
 _The dragon-fire, in twisted wire,_  
 _they hung the light of moon and sun."_

Dager stilled as her voice began to weave through the air, her hand not stilling and she heard a sharp intake from the doorway, but she didn’t care. This was the Song of Erebor, of the loss and the pain, and he deserved to hear it. Deserved to hear the call of his homeland before he was hauled off to die.  
  
 _"Far over the misty mountains cold,_  
 _In dungeons deep, and caverns old,_  
 _We must away, ere break of day,_  
 _To claim our long-forgotten gold._  
  
 _Goblets they carved there for themselves,_  
 _And harps of gold, where no man delves,_  
 _There lay they long, and many a song,_  
 _Was sung unheard, by men or elves._  
  
 _The pines were roaring on the height,_  
 _The wind was moaning in the night,_  
 _The fire was red, it flaming spread,_  
 _The trees like torches blazed with light._  
  
 _The bells were ringing in the dale,_  
 _And men looked up, with faces pale,_  
 _Then dragons-ire, more fierce than fire,_  
 _Laid low their towers and houses frail._  
  
 _The mountain smoked beneath the moon,_  
 _The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom,_  
 _They fled their hall to dying fall,_  
 _Beneath his feet, beneath the moon."_

The words continue to hang in the air, but she could hear another voice rise in the song, from the doorway, a deep, rough, bass to match her light alto. She didn't look over as, below her ear, Dager's weak voice joined in. She had suspected, but never asked, if Thror had been the Mahal-cursed King and his voice, joining in the song, told her it was.  
  
 _"Far over the misty mountains grim,_  
 _In dungeons deep and carverns dim,_  
 _We must away, ere break of day,_  
 _To win our harps and gold from him..."_

She hummed a few more lines and Dager huffed. "Don't you dare go on that fool's errand. Don't you  _dare_ follow our Exiled King," Dager hissed.

"Always, Dager. He is my king, and he is a good one. I wish to see him become a great one," she responded softly and he clung to her sleeves tightly, burying his head into her shoulder.

A sob left him then and she held him tightly. "Why couldn't you be a thrice-cursed thief?" Dager demanded.

"Because that is not me. I am Mother Dori and while I walk through the shadows of the Hidden Mountain, I am not part of it, not really," she whispered and looked over when she heard heavy steps.

"The cart is here," the guard stated and she nodded, before she carefully released Dager, staring at the Dwarf before she looked pleadingly up at the guard.

"Please...please be gentle with the Grandfather of my Heart," she begged softly and the guard stilled before he nodded and carefully helped Dager stand, pulling him from Dori, the clang of shackles snapping over his wrists echoing in the quiet of the dungeon and she sat there, Dwalin stepping through to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder as Dager was lead away, Dwalin carefully pulling her to her feet and wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders, the loyal Guard of the Royal Family in Exile leading her up and steadying her when she misstepped as she followed the procession of death and showed her to the side exit so she could watch Dager loaded into the cart and watch as it pulled away and out of sight.

Only then did she collapse over in tears, allowing herself to mourn, the guards looking away and Dwalin keeping his arm around her shoulders.

When she finally managed to get herself under control, Dwalin led her back to the book, where her half-brother still waited. “May Mahal continue to bless you in all things, Samri,” she stated and signed out before she turned to walk out the front door, head held high.

Dwalin stepping up next to her was unsurprising.

“I know a place we can have a private conversation, if you are willing,” Dwalin stated and she looked up at him.

“I am, but I have two sons, one of the heart, to get back to,” Dori answered.

“It’ll take just a moment,” Dwalin pressed and Dori let out a long-suffering sigh.

She should have known the song would get her into trouble.

“Save me from the stubbornness of male Dwarves,” she grumbled, but carefully wound her hands around his elbow like a proper Lady.

And Dwalin began to lead her down the streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Tolkien's full song because I wanted it all there. Because this is the moment where Dwalin realizes the unwed mother, struggling, is of _Erebor_. This is their song and the Nobles and Royals of Erebor have failed her _and_ her child.
> 
> This is the song that only those of Exile really know, that their allies know. It is secret and binding, in my opinion and I always felt that they shared it with Bilbo in the book, and movie, to give him something, so someone would remember and maybe, just maybe, he would join them.
> 
> They could always use another ally, they always need them, even if it is a non-Dwarf.
> 
> Also, thank you to NammiKisulora on here and tumblr for all the help on this bit.
> 
> I have had all four wisdom teeth removed today, so mistakes are probably around.


	37. Naming

They sit in a tea shop, almost one right out of Dori's dreams, but there's no Nori in the corner or Lyer whining about tea mixes, or Ori at the counter, practicing his drawing or his writing. He's going to be starting on Westron soon, and wonders what is in this place that sends him...

Lady Dis stepping out of the back room silences Dori's thoughts. It doesn't matter that she is the daughter of a King, that she practically runs this small little city in the Blue Mountains when her brother is away, she still has to work like everyone else, because the money doesn't just go to her family, it spreads out across the scattered people of Erebor, an exiled Royalty doing their best for their people the only way they know how.

"Ah," she answered softly and Dwalin gave a small nod.

She clasps her hands on the table, a stone worn smooth with time, across from the rough diamond that is Dwalin son of Fundin.

She wonders if being around thieves is awakening her gem cutters' blood, and looks calmly at Dwalin. "What did you wish to speak of?" she asked softly.

"You're of Erebor," he stated and she nodded, once, in agreement.

"What family?" Dwalin asked.

"Does it matter? I claim 'Ri, but that isn't it, and you know it. I don't have the trader-talk memorized or know their sayings, and saying my father died young doesn't excuse about half of it. To say my family wouldn't change anything between us, so Ri will do," she responded softly and Dwalin is frustrated, leaning back slightly and she watches him.

"It  _matters_ ," Dwalin insisted and she thought about her father.

She knew him better than Nori, loved him dearly, was his precious darling, while his mother was his polished sapphire, though the word was odd coming from him, trader that he was. "My father was of 'Ri, not my mother. We carried our father's name, and later my mother changed her own name to make her story...work. She tried to bury her blood, while not actually burying it. She gave up the first gift my father gave her to my father's wife in exchange for her silence. My father's wife wouldn't speak of the fact my mother and my father were never married and my mother would have dissolved the relationship she had with my father after his death by giving away the first gift between them. As such, it doesn't matter. I am a bastard child with a bastard child of my own and thus am not in need of having those of Erebor's Nobility and Royalty care for me. Your honor is safe, as is theirs and that is all," Dori explained softly and she nearly laughed at the way Dwalin snarled and twitched in rage over her words.

She only spoke the truth, however.

Her lack of a husband and lack of courting gifts and lack of snarling for revenge had made her someone without honor, who gave away "favors" and got stuck with a son due to one of her trysts and very few knew the truth of the manner.

"Your mother then," Dwalin pressed and she gave a small smile at that, though it was without humor and it mostly filled with strained politeness.

"What does it matter?" Dori questioned and she almost wonders if Dwalin will punch the table in frustration when a tea cup settles in front of Dori and she looks up at her Princess, her _Lady_ and instantly looks away.

"My thanks, my lady," Dori answered softly and Dis hummed softly.

"Dwalin, stop interrogating her. Her answer has been giving. She's right in saying that her mother's family doesn't matter, not in the long run. Not when she's released us from our duty to her twice," Dis stated and Dwalin sits back with a growl and Dis turns to Dori.

"I hope you reconsider one day," Dis stated and Dori gave a small smile.

"That is unlikely my lady," Dori answered and quietly stood.

"I have a son of the blood and the son of the heart to return to, Dwalin son of Fundin. I thank you for your concern, but it is unnecessary," Dori stated and she left.

She did not doubt she would see Dwalin or some other noble making their way down to the tavern (and made a quick mental note to warn the patrons) sometime soon. But she made her way as quickly as possible, tears already stinging once more at the back of her eyes and she is moving as fast as she can back to the tavern. The minute she returns, Ori is clinging to her skirts and Lyer is clinging to her and she hugs them both back as best as she can.

Only then does Tavor tell her to go home.

* * *

“Lyer, do you have a Heart Name?” she inquired gently as she brushed out his hair after a very long and trying day.

It was probably more soothing for her than him, but he allowed the ministrations anyway, having already made his nest of blankets and furs before the trunk. She is gentle as she tugs impossible knots free, careful as she deposits ‘trinkets’ into his waiting hand. “Never had one,” he answered softly, well aware of Ori sleeping on the bed, and she hummed a bit as she began to twist his wild hair into one braid down his back.

Her mother called it a ‘fishbone’ braid, but it kept even Nori’s wild hair tamed and she had no doubt it would succeed with Lyer.

“Would you care for one?” she inquired as she finished off the braid, already seeing where wild wisps were escaping and his beard, more like a Firebeard’s than a Longbeard’s, but that was no matter in the long run. He was a Dwarf all the same and if he wasn’t she could hardly fall farther than she already had if she took a non-Dwarf child in, if that was her desire.

She is a bit surprised when he twisted to look up at her and answered, “If it was from you, yes. If not, I’ll live without it.”

She hummed a bit at that and began to work on untangling his beard, gently. Far more gently then working on his hair, and said, “Anmizimaz.”

He started and she smiled. “You are Anmizimaz. And that means you’ll be joining Ori in family history lessons,” she answered and laughed, quietly, at his groan.

And then she ushered him off to bed before she began to get ready for bed herself, out of sight, carefully removing the blades from her braid and freeing her hair to flow like liquid silver before she managed to braid it back, startling slightly when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She twisted, a blade in her hand, careful of the edge and stilled upon seeing Nori, who smiled at her in the shadows. “Nori,” she breathed in relief and Nori smiled before he gently tapped her shoulder and took over the braiding.

She let him and he asked “Anmizimaz?”

“I felt it fit.”

Nori chuckled lowly and gently tugged on her braid. “You think he’ll keep quiet?”

“For me? Yes,” Dori answered and stepped around to stare straight at the, still awake, Lyer.

“Go to sleep Anmizimaz. Tomorrow you may meet your new uncle,” she stated and Nori groaned behind her.

She did not hesitate to turn and smack him upside the head.

(The next morning, Lyer eyes Nori and grins, Ori laughs and clambers all over Nori, while Dori cooks breakfast, humming a song that their mother used to sing when everything was good and happy, before everything went oh so horribly wrong. It fills Nori with nostalgia and, most painfully of all, hope.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anmizimaz = Greatest River of Jewel Origins


	38. Family History Lessons Begin Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short.
> 
> I am sorry.
> 
> But I had to leave it at where I left it at.

Nori resisted the urge to chuckle as Dori maneuvered her two sons around to sit on the furs she had in front of the hearth so she could begin the family history lessons. Dori was so like their own mother in that moment, remembering clearly how she had once ushered them about in the same way. He remembered the way she had spoken of their history, their long and glorious line, smiling at the way Dori now freed the grand book from the hidden compartment in her trunk.

Its presence only proved to Nori that her ex was a fourth rate con artist who had managed to get her to love him and one day, Nori would have a face, if not a name, and he would  _end_ that miserable sack of dragon dung if it was the last thing he would do.

Well, maybe not the  _last_ thing, but close to the last thing.

He watched as Dori carefully pulled out the uncut, rough, pigeon's blood ruby a little larger than half the size of Dori's fist from that secret compartment as well and Lyer sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and awe upon seeing it.

Ori just cooed about how pretty it was and Nori pointedly crossed his arms to pin his fingers out of the way, even as his fingers itched to cut and polish fine rubies from it. He could see the large gem, fit for a queen, could be cut from one of the larger parts, and could just  _sense_  all the little jewels he could cut and polish from it all, the rough gemstone singing in Dori's hand.

He knew Dori couldn't.

He knew she hadn't been born with the ability to sense what the gem could become under trained hands, though Nori could.

He just didn't have the training and he doubted he ever would. Gem cutters were not common around the Blue Mountains and apprenticeship could never happen  _now,_ not with the life Nori had chosen.

(Of course, Nori could also feel what could become of silver, of gold, of any fine metal, mixed with those gems he wished he could cut. His entire being sung and hummed to create, and he sometimes wished that he had taken the chance when it was offered, but that time was gone, long gone, and Nori's chance to create such things gone with it.)

"We are of the Ereborian Family of Mizimaz. We are gem cutters are the highest caliber. And our greatest accomplishment to date is the cutting of the Arkenstone itself," Dori introduced.

The  _sound_ Lyer made earned a soft chuckle from Nori.

All his amusement dies when Ori, his eyes wide and curious, asks in that innocent way only children can, “What’s the Arkenstone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I am at an impasse.
> 
> I had always planned to actually make this into three parts, not including Kin, because that is mostly a collection of side-stories specifically for this part.
> 
> The first part was supposed to basically set up the Quest, the second part was the Quest kind-of retold with a female Dori and a few other changes, and the third part was after the Quest.
> 
> (Denial? What Denial? I don't see any Denial, not at all. What thing that happened during the Battle? I don't remember anything significant happening during the Battle.)
> 
> Each part was to have a slowly growing, not in canonical order, side story that told the things from everyone's POV and gave more insight into what the flip was happening outside of Dori's world.
> 
> However...
> 
> This part is getting _really_ long.
> 
> So, I was wondering, should this get split up between his childhood and the part leading up to the Quest, or should I just make it incredibly epic in length and go by the original plan?
> 
> Despite the length, I am leaning toward the original plan, but seriously, this will become my longest fic ever for it.
> 
> (Also, yes. Dori's family, probably grandfather, cut the Arkenstone. Because, it looked bigger when found. Cut it and polished it and Thror rewarded them greatly for it. But they aren't nobles still, though by the Laws of Erebor, anyone from their family _can_ marry a noble without needing special permission from the Royal Family.)


	39. Out of the Mouth of Babes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nadad means "(the) brother."

Lyer smiled as he pulled Ori more firmly onto his lap as they relaxed in the back of the tavern with Mesi to oversee them.

The little dwarfling in his lap was a bit fussy, but Lyer actually expected that, considering how he was usually running around the tavern at this moment. However, when Amad had stepped in through the back, Mesi had been there, saying old _friends_ of Tavor’s were here and that was enough to have her banishing them _both_ to the back.

Mesi had laughed, until he had heard him call her _Amad_.

Then the laughter had stopped and when Mesi shot a questioning glance at Lyer, he had merely shrugged.

His secrets were his secrets and he would keep them to the grave.

Even if Ori seemed determined to give them away with his impatient, constant, whining of, “Nadad, let me go!”

* * *

Dori passed out the ale, mead, and beer to the group in the back corner that Tavor eyed as if they were Durin’s Bane itself.

She gave him a look as she came back, ignoring how one of the Regulars she didn’t know that well (his name was Fafyer, she believed, but she couldn’t be sure) edged closer to her at the bar. “Tavor,” she scolded softly as she picked up more tankards of beer for a group of illegal miners (Bofur among them).

“I just don’t think you should be at work yet,” he explained and she sighed as she adjusted the tankards around.

“Tavor, it has been a month since Dager was executed. I can’t take a year off,” she retorted as she lifted her tray up, balancing it perfectly in her grip.

“Ya could if you moved into that place Tavor found for you,” Fafyer stated.

“I won’t let those who thank me for caring for their children to help me, what makes you think I’d let Tavor?” she returned and bumped him with her hip (which earned her a laugh) and then she was heading over to the table of miners.

“Ah, lovely Mother Dori, I could kiss ya for yer gifts of liquid gold that you bring us!” Bofur teased as he made to stand.

She immediately nudged him behind the knee so he fell back onto his seat.

He laughed as his posterior hit the bench and the rest laughed at him.

She passed out the tankards, unable to stop the grin that crossed her face as Bofur stood once more and gave a very over exaggerated bow to her.

“My dear and Mahal blessed Mother Dori, the greatest of all dear and grand ladies who have crossed our threshold, within my presence, I feel I may have offended you in some fashion with my advances. Please, accept my most gracious and humble apologies,” he stated and grinned cheekily up at her.

“Oh, Bofur, if you had truly offended me, I would have broken every bone in your hand,” she teased gently and he laughed before he joined the rest in sitting at the table.

She smacked her towel at one of the thieves she did not know so well when he tried to sneak closer to the miners, and he (no, she) immediately backed off, shaking her hand off, before giving a mocking nod of her head.

Dori merely raised an eyebrow before she turned to head to the kitchen. The moment the door was shut firmly behind her, she found herself with a skirtful of Ori.

“Amad, I’m _bored_ and I can hear Bofur!” the dwarfling protested and she laughed before she gently ruffled his hair.

“Not today Ori. Maybe tomorrow, but there are people out there who are dangerous,” she stated.

Ori frowned a bit. “But aren’t they _all_?” Ori questioned and she sighed before she settled her tray on the table.

She knelt down and gently took Ori’s hands in hers.

“Ori, sweetheart, yes the people here are dangerous. But this is a different kind of dangerous. The kind of dangerous that won’t protect you, but harm you and use you for their own ends,” she explained softly, gently tracing Ori’s cheek with one of her callused fingers.

He squirmed slightly at that, and stared up at her. “Like Adad?” he questioned softly.

“Who told you that?” she demanded.

“No one, not really. Just…overheard things,” Ori answered and she sighed softly, seeing how Ori looked away from her.

Specifically at the floor.

Dori let out a long sigh and carefully placed her finger under his chin, behind the downy beard, before she coaxed him to look up at her. “Yes, like your father. Very much like your father. Let’s not think of him like that, however, hmm? Let’s think of him more as, the reason you are here, a donation of sorts, to make up for all the hurt he caused,” she explained softly, ignoring how Lyer and Mesi seemed to tense behind her.

She let out a surprised sound as he suddenly threw his arms around her neck in a hug and buried his face behind her beard. “I don’t think I make up for much,” he whispered.

Dori swallowed back her tears as she clung tightly to her little son.

“Oh, Ori, you make up for it _all_ ,” she murmured and rubbed his back as he began to sniffle into her shoulder.

Mesi didn’t try to hurry her and Tavor never showed up.

(Dori had no doubt that he somehow knew what was going on the kitchen, despite being half a room away from it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to go into a timeskip, more so than what I did here.
> 
> I have Plans and really can't think of anything to fill up a year timeskip that needs to happen, plot wise.
> 
> (Remember, I take requests for the side-stories.)


	40. Bad Turn (Kidnapping...sorry, forgot to warn the first time)

The months seemed to fly by after Lyer joined her family more officially then any other member of the Black Sword, beyond Nori that is.

During those months, Dori fell into a bit of a stable routine, which she hadn't had since she left the village at the foot of the Blue Mountains, leaving behind her forge and past there.

She would head to the tavern for the space of the top of the afternoon to dusk shift, which mainly had illegal miners (Bofur was a near constant presence and loved to have Ori clamber all over him just as much as Ori loved to clamber all over him, covering Ori in rock dust in the process) and a few thieves of all types that she did not know nearly as well as Bofur.

Bofur always greeted her warmly and never put his hands anywhere that would require her to break his hand.

Tavor kept trying to get her to move into the place he had found, and she kept saying no.

Nori disappeared less than he had before, breaks between disappearances slowly, yet surely, growing longer.

Harmem had returned from whatever he had been doing a little worse for wear, but otherwise whole (as in he had all his limbs and there was nothing missing to her knowledge), and also joined the crowd that came in around dusk.

It was peaceful almost, omitting a couple of times when people got a bit too handsy, or a fight started, though that was usually during one of the two times a month she took the night shift (and it took a lot of pleading, begging, and deal making for Dori to allow her two sons to continue coming with her on those nights, though with the promise they would  _stay in the kitchen_ attached to it all), and Dori felt herself slipping into being comfortable.

She really should have known better.

* * *

Dori sighed as she eyed her sons before she focused on the flour, the eggs, and…fruit, it seemed, that was practically _plastered_ across her kitchen. “Whatever will I do with you two?” she mused as she looked around the mess that was, once, her kitchen.

“Love us?” Lyer offered.

“That’s a given,” Dori answered calmly and eyed Ori, who seemed deep in thought and covered head to toe in flour.

She didn’t pause to begin dusting him off, ignoring how Lyer was attempting to do the same with his own clothes, only to make it worse.

That was what happened with jam all over his hands.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t move,” she answered and stepped out, shaking out her skirts to the best of her ability, already realizing that she would need her broom and an open door.

But first…her sons.

She got a bucket and took it out to the water pump, filling it quickly. As she moved to take it back inside, she noticed that a Man was leaning against the house nearest to the pump. “May I help you?” she asked in Westron.

“I’m looking for Dori, daughter of Riel,” he greeted and Dori, carefully, hauled the water bucket up in her hands.

“Wrong street,” she answered and immediately began to head toward her house.

“Funny that,” the Man called and she ignored him as she walked, noting that she could hear him coming towards her.

As she approached her own home, she didn’t hesitate to twist and send her fist into his ribcage.

She felt ribs give, slightly, under her fist and his strangled sound as all air was forced from his lungs. “Wrong. Street,” Dori repeated and turned, heading inside, locking the door firmly behind her.

“Lyer, get that sink cleaned out! You are going to be washing your hands. _After_ I get the flour off of you!” she answered as she walked back into the kitchen, only to groan to find that Ori had, someone, gotten jam all over himself on top of the flour he was already covered in.

“You too Ori. Let’s see how much of that flour I can get off of you,” Dori responded through her chuckles, Lyer smiling brightly at her when she tugged him over to where Ori was, brushing him off as she did so.

Once that was done, Dori began to work on getting flour, and jam, off of Ori, only to get covered in it as well when her youngest son throw himself at her to smother her in hugs and kisses.

It was in that moment, in her near destroyed kitchen, in a grey dress and hair pulled up into intricate braiding and lined with small spikes, Dori couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh at it all, despite the fact a Man had been hovering near her home.

“Careful of the hair!” she called, even as Ori shoved his face against her neck.

* * *

“All right, I’m off. You two coming?” Dori teased as she watched the pair half-asleep on the bed, only groan and twitch.

They were exhausted after Dori had made them clean the kitchen and do the laundry, and wash all the dishes. For, even if they were trying to bake her a cake (and she wasn’t even going to think on the fact they had cleaned out the brick oven in the back of the fireplace for use), they still had to clean up the mess they made.

She decided not to tell them that the oven was useless without anything to go with it and was thankful they had only done what was done to her poor kitchen.

“Well, all right then. Good night you two,” she answered, nudging their foreheads gently before she tucked them in.

Once she was reassured that her hair was braided over her shoulder and she had everything she needed, she headed out, locking up behind her.

Shaking her head slightly at her sons’ antics, she quickly made her way to the Black Sword Tavern.

* * *

“Mesi, really, walking my home is not…” Dori protested only to stop speaking when she saw her doorway hanging half-open.

She did not hesitate to break into a run, in and through the door in an instant, only to find the place roughed, but not destroyed.

The bed coverings would need replacing, along with most of furnishings, and the closet was practically dismantled, and the kitchen was a mess.

“What in Mahal’s name happened?” Mesi asked.

Dori turned to find Mesi looking around and Dori barely noticed when Mesi backed away from her rapidly. “Dori?” Mesi called nervously, but Dori’s eyes were on the bed and the unharmed chest at the foot.

“Someone stole my sons. And I am going to get them _back_ ,” Dori answered as she marched over to the bed, kneeling under to grab her flail from Nori.

She had people to hunt.


	41. Patience Cracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, the POV is not going to be told from Dori's POV.
> 
> Or any of the Ri family's POV.
> 
> It is in Tavor's.
> 
> I know, I was shocked too.
> 
> (Also super-short chapter. I couldn't leave it in Kin, it didn't work in Kin, but it worked here. So...Tavor chapter!)

"Dori, please sit down," Tavor stated as Dori took her sixth turn around the underground meeting room.

It had taken Mesi two hours and promises (and maybe an oath sworn in blood if the slice across his palm was any indication) to get them here, and then Mesi had gone running for every other member of the inner circle.

Harmem, and Nori, tied for the first here, but Dori had threatened Harmem's hands if he touched her and Nori hadn't even gone near her, just tracked her movements.

Tavor was surprised Dori was even being this patient and he didn't twitch as Dori turned on him from across the stone table. "No, I will  _not_ sit down!  _Someone_ has taken  _my sons_ and if you think, for one second, that I wouldn't  _tear this mountain down_ to find them, you are  _dead_ wrong," Dori snarled viciously as she slammed her fist onto the stone table in the dead center of the meeting room with a resounding crack.

The stone table was built from the very rock of the room, along with the chairs that surrounded it.

All were immovable and powerful, a sign of strength and a sturdy foundation.

Something unbreakable and unshakable.

The crack, however, had not come from Dori's hand shattering, but from the table.

The table that now had a long jagged crack straight through the table. "Dori," Harmem breathed and Dori glanced over at him before she glanced down, pulling back with a stuttering sigh before she covered her face with her hand.

"Sorry. I lost....my temper and with it my control," Dori muttered, but Tavor mostly took in the table, cracked down the center, and the fact she was only briefly inspecting her hand.

"Feeling better?" Nori asked.

"No," Dori answered.

"Right. Your sons have been kidnapped and no one is letting you hunt them down. Calmer?" Nori asked.

"Until you spoke, yes," Dori answered and Nori snorted before he stood up.

"We'll check in. Grab your flail Dori, let's go," Nori stated.

"Nori, incredible strength or not, Doriisn't safe out there!" Harmem argued and Nori turned to give him a look while Dori hefted her flail easily while Tavor eyed the table once more.

He considered the tiny argument they were having and the way Dori seemed tempted to swing that flail at them, was shifting her hand to the right position and Tavor sighed. "Harmem, I think it is  _them_ that you should worry about, not her. I think if anyone this night tries to touch her or withhold information from her, they'll wind up needing a new leg, at least. Leave them _alive_ Mother Dori," Tavor answered and Dori gave a sharp nod before idly tossing her braid over her shoulder.

"Well?" she demanded and Nori quickly pulled away from Harmem and led the way out.

Harmem took a deep breath and then rushed after Nori. "I'm coming as well," he stated and Dori cuffed him upside the head when he came close to her.

Harmem did not flinch.


	42. Retrieving Answers (Torture, Blood, Gore, Threats, Violence)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday to me!
> 
> For the week of my birthday I am updating something once a day.

Dori frowned as they came to the stretch of taverns and inns that catered to Men, and Harmem looked around. "Why are we here?" Nori questioned.

"There was a Man near my home today. I'm hoping to find him. And possibly remove his leg with my flail," Dori answered and Nori gave a nod.

"Makes perfect sense. What does he look like?" Nori responded and Dori gave a vicious grin before she began to describe the Man to the two Dwarves eagerly awaiting her description.

* * *

Lyer gripped Ori tightly to his chest as he glared at the Dwarves who disliked Tavor and the Men who were helping them. “Traitorous worms! Tavor will shred you to pieces!” Lyer snarled in Westron as Ori whimpered, burying his face into Lyer’s collarbone, fingers curling into his tunic.

“I would worry more about the little parasite on your chest there over what _might_ happen to us _if_ we are caught,” the Dwarf with the gray beard snapped and Lyer wrapped his arms more firmly around Ori in response, nuzzling his nose a bit into Ori’s hair even as his eyes locked on their enemies.

“What do you want with us?” Lyer demanded.

When the gray bearded Dwarf stood up to march towards them, Lyer immediately twisted around to protect Ori, curling over him and hiding Ori within his grip as the booted foot slammed into his back.

He hissed out through his teeth and braced against the wall to keep from Ori getting cracked into the wall.

Ori whimpered at the jerk and clung to Lyer’s tunic as another kick exploded across his back. Ori coughed and clung tighter still as the Dwarf moved to kick again when one of the Men suddenly hauled the Dwarf back. “We need them _mostly_ unharmed,” the Man who stopped the Dwarf, blond hair flying wildly around his face, snarled.

“He’s not even her real kid! We just need the little one!” the Dwarf snapped.

“She’s taken Lyer into her home and braided the braids into his hair. He’s hers just as much as Ori is. Now shut up and leave them alone,” a voice, far too familiar, snapped and Lyer winced when he heard Ori’s sharp intake of breath.

“Drunner?” Lyer whispered and Ori nodded slowly while clinging desperately to Lyer.

Drunner was one of _Tavor’s_ Dwarves that was a regular around _The Black Sword_ and one that Dori had turned down constantly. He was a bit more serious than the rest, but Lyer just couldn’t get why he was going after _them_.

Dori’s _children._

It screamed of something not right, especially as Drunner was just someone Dori barely no…

Lyer immediately clung tighter to Ori.

Drunner had certainly gotten Dori’s attention, but Lyer didn’t think he was going to enjoy what Dori did to him when she found them.

Even if the reason he gave was to take over the Hidden Mountain.

* * *

The Man didn’t have a chance as Harmem grabbed him.

Man or not, a foot taller than Harmem or not, he was down and in one of Tavor’s many hiding places before he had time to scream or anyone to even realize he had been taken right off a well light street.

Not even Dwalin, the ever watchful guard, had noticed just up the street from the snatch, though that was possibly because of Nori, and that was that.

Harmem didn’t even hesitate as he slammed the Man into the ground mercilessly at Dori’s feet and stepped back while the Man coughed, trying to get air back in his lungs.

“You will answer my question or you will lose the use of one of your legs. Refuse to answer me twice, and you’ll lose the use of one of your hands. With that in mind, where are the sons of Dori?” she demanded.

“Why don’t you ask nice Dwarvish whore and _maybe_ I’ll tell you,” the Man hissed.

Harmem didn’t have a chance to do anything to him as Dori suddenly punched him right in the knee. There was sickening _crack_ sound, and the Man couldn’t even scream as it caught in his throat, cracking there as well and choking off.

He sounded like a wounded dog, but Dori actually would have felt pity for said dog.

She felt none for the thing at her feet.

“Where are the sons of Dori?” she questioned.

He said something vile in some dialect of Westron Dori did not know and suddenly Harmem was on him, the knife through the Man’s hand while Harmem’s hand covered his mouth to muffle his scream.

“You _ever_ speak of her like that again, the only thing that will save you from a quick end is my own natural inclination to draw things out. And when I do that, you will spill ever deep dark secret you carry in that skin of yours, do you understand me?” Harmem snarled, a secondary knife settled against the Man’s cheek.

The Man smirked under Harmem’s hand and Harmem sighed while Dori watched dispassionately.

“Dori, I think you should head around with Nori. This Man and I need to chat and maybe you can find a lead on the street,” Harmem stated and Dori eyed him.

“The minute he tells you where my children are, find a way to tell me. In the meantime, I think you are right. Besides, if Nori continues to irritate Dwalin, we’ll be down two members instead of one, and then I _will_ have to rip this mountain up by the roots to find my sons, and I don’t think anyone would particularly like that,” she responded calmly and tugged at her sleeves before she swept out of the cellar, heading straight up and was unsurprised when Nori dropped down next to her.

“And where is Dwalin?”

“High Court Street. We got a lead?” Nori asked.

“No, not entirely. But Harmem has a new toy to play with in the meantime and we can always ask around on the street,” Dori responded calmly.

“Well, let’s get hunting,” Nori answered and Dori grinned viciously, even as she hid her flail away out of sight.

There would be time enough to use it later.


	43. As the Sun and Moon Commands (Graphic Violence...kinda)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, sorry this took so long to update.
> 
> And that it is not nearly as bloody as I was expecting.

Nori felt his eyes drift lazily from Man to Man to Dwarf in the farthest outpost of Thorin's City.

Well...kind-of.

Nori resisted the urge to snicker at that long-held belief that this was  _Dís's_ city, despite whose seal was used. Behind him, he could hear Dori’s false laughter and he bit back the urge to turn and drive his knife into someone’s back.

He didn’t want to know what she was doing and if he didn’t turn around…

“He’s either a genius or an idiot,” a Man stated to one of his Dwarven companions.

“What’s he done _this_ time?” the Dwarf, blond (a rarity not seen beyond the Exiled Heir’s own blond hair, but an even brighter shade…somehow), asked with the long-suffering edge of one who seemed to be expecting a great deal of stupidity in the near future.

Oddly enough, it sounded like Dori’s whenever she caught sight of him with a bloody lip.

“He was in here, talking about how they have this _plan_ ,” the Man (dark skinned, dark haired, but honest trader folk, by his manner and clothing, if not by the company he obviously keeps) stated.

“I could tell right off that that was not a good sign,” the Dwarf on the other side of the Man, as dark as the Man, stated and the blond Dwarf let out a long standing groan.

“Anyway, you know around here there’s that Thief whatchit. One of those ‘mountains’ that’s not really a mountain or something of the sort,” the Man stated and the blond Dwarf made a confirming noise.

Nori let his eyes wander, but kept his ears focused.

“Said he was helpin’ a Dwarf undermine the head of it, but he said he couldn’t say more or he’d get gutted,” the Man finished and the blond Dwarf groaned again.

“Let ‘im rot Kori,” the dark Dwarf stated and Nori nearly fell off the stool at the mention of his half-brother.

“Are you kiddin’? My wife would _kill_ me,” Kori snapped.

Okay, most likely half-brother.

Not that Nori cared about whether or not he might be hurting said half-sibling, because he didn’t.

Not one iota.

But there was that whole ‘bad blood between kin’ curse he might want to worry about.

Then again, maybe this was Mahal’s justice to their father’s (married) family leaving them high and dry after their shared father’s death.

And who was he to disrupt Mahal’s justice?

Nori was up and moving casually to their table before his final thought was fully formed and sitting with them as if he had meant to sit there the entire time.

They immediately silenced and the dark Dwarf glared while the blond’s eyes narrowed at him.

“I don’t remember inviting you,” the Man stated.

“Oh, you didn’t. But, see, that friend you mentioned…I want a name and a location,” Nori stated idly and then had his knife settling, just barely, against Kori’s hand.

“Now, if at all convenient,” he added almost cheerfully.

* * *

Dori didn’t say a thing when Nori suddenly came over to her and ‘lead’ her away, much like how she had ‘led’ (hauled out) Nori away multiple times.

“I have a name and a description. Also, was Kori a blond?” Nori explained as they walked quickly through the streets and Dori barely restrained her temper in Nori’s refusal to just give a name and location.

“Kori as in half-brother Kori?” Dori grit out as they walked rapidly into the night, Dori’s cloak easily hiding her mace, and Nori nodded rapidly, eyes darting about.

“Yes. Dark blond. Mother thought it would lighten if he stayed a travelling trader. Why?” Dori responded.

‘He’s married now,” Nori stated.

“Nori,” she hissed warningly.

“Yep. Apparently we’re going off to kill our brother-in-law. Or is it half-brother-in-law?” Nori asked, grinning without shame at the pun and Dori smacked him.

“What is it then?” she demanded, but stilled upon realizing that Nori had stopped.

She turned to face him and held her cloak, narrowing her eyes at him slightly.

Before she could ask, Nori cursed. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Just remembered the reason for this. Mahal curse it,” Nori snarled and looked around.

He then suddenly stepped back and Dori felt herself frown. “Nori, what…” she began, but Nori was already moving and Dori restrained herself from grabbing her mace to bash her brother with it.

She wanted a name and _now_ , if it was at all convenient, and even if it were not, she wanted a name.

“Watch her Harmem! And if she has one scratch, she’s going to have to make new items for you to wear because you won’t have hands anymore!” Nori stated and then he turned and ran.

She did not jump when a black draped arm rested across her shoulders. “He said something about a Rosur. Apparently he gets into gambling debts often and his sister’s husband bails him out, often,” he stated.

“That fast?” she inquired slightly, noting the suspicious stains under his fingernails.

“I had to do it cheap and dirty, but essentially…yes,” Harmem answered with a light shrug.

“And where are they?” Dori asked.

Harmem seemed to realize that he was walking unstable ground and immediately answered. “In a house at the edge of Thorin’s reach, not that I think that they know that,” Harmem answered easily as he idly lead her down the street.

“Take me,” she ordered.

Harmem stepped back from her and she found that his smile was a cold and cruel thing, more appropriate on a dragon than Harmem’s face, but for some reason it didn’t frighten Dori. He then bowed as a loyal guard to his liege and answered, “As you command, my Sun and Moon.”

* * *

Harmem lead the way to the house, wondering if he should try and convince Dori that maybe she should hang back, before realizing that she would only wait long enough to ensure that her sons didn’t see her in a murderous rage, and then she would most likely cripple everyone within the house for life.

If her sons were there.

If not, they would be without a lead and Harmem resisted the urge to sigh at that as he slipped through the house as silent as a shadow.

He was about to return and tell Dori he had the information wrong when his eyes landed on a huddled form, pressed into the corner of the front room. Harmem’s eyes narrowed and then he felt himself slip into his assassin mindset (unattended barrels of alcohol, stew simmering in a pot, the fact only the front room was filled with light) at the realization the huddled form was Lyer.

His stilled farther when he saw a movement within Lyer’s embrace, and then tiny hands gripping Lyer’s tunic.

 _Ori_.

As much as Harmem itched to kill them well…

It would be far more satisfying to watch Dori, literally, tear them apart.

* * *

“Lyer is huddled over Ori in the front room. Everyone’s there. They seem to be gambling. I can get them out through the back, which is unguarded,” Harmem stated.

“We’re Dwarves, Master Harmem, and our lives our hard. Lyer will keep Ori from seeing, but Lyer has seen, and heard, much worse,” Dori stated.

“Besides, if Lyer is huddled in the corner, he _can’t_ be moved. He wouldn’t keep his back completely to a room of strangers, even to protect Ori. Sideways, yes, but back to the room? Only if he can’t get to a ‘safer’ position,” Dori continued, an eerie calmness coloring every word.

She adjusted her grip on her cat o nine-tails mace and began to walk to the house.

* * *

It was over embarrassingly quick, in all honesty.

Dori kicked the door off the hinges to the point of sending it flying into the table. It hit the members of the conspiracy closer to the door (a Man and a Dwarf), while the other three members (two more Men and another Dwarf) reacted.

Harmem had darted over to guard Lyer and Ori, while Dori descended on the kidnappers.

First she lashed out with the cat o nine-tails mace, catching one of the Men, the force sending him stumbling into the other Man. She then swung it again and sent it into the Dwarf trying to run, the cracking of bones and the pained screams echoing through the air.

Dori quickly leapt on the remaining people and there were sickening cracks of bone breaking, more choked off cries and then Dori was running to her sons, mace still in hand. She dropped it to immediately look over her sons, Ori immediately burying himself in her embrace while Lyer shook with pain.

Harmem stood over them like a sentinel against the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dori refused to do anything worse to them with her sons right there.
> 
> However, if her sons had been in a different room, there would have been blood painting the walls.
> 
> Also, Wild Harmem POV.
> 
> Yeah, surprised me too.


	44. Nori Strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violence, Blood, Nameless Goons Die Bloody Deaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this longer, so I apologize for your long wait of two months and seventeen days for a 1,152 word chapter update.
> 
> It refused to grow longer.
> 
> Next chapter should have Dori returning.

Nori rushed through the streets like a fox outracing the hounds, only this time, the hounds weren’t coming for him.

They were coming for Tavor.

He did not hesitate to just run around guards that would give chase and, when Dwalin showed up on his heels, he did none of his usual tricks, instead losing him quickly before continuing on.

Why Ori and Lyer had been targeted, why…

Tavor _adored_ Dori. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t something everyone knew either. You had to be a Regular, you had to be _trusted_ to truly know how much Tavor adored Dori. It was that thought that had Nori growling low in his throat as he moved ever faster.

That had been the glitch in their planning however. They had been so focused on how much Tavor adored Dori that they forgot to look at who Dori was. To look at _why_ Tavor, hardened like the rock of the Blue Mountains, would adore Dori.

That had been their error.

They had thought that Tavor would focus on getting the kids back, but they didn’t know Dori. They didn’t _know_ what she would do for her children and, in all honesty, not even Nori knew the extent of what his sister was willing to do. He had known her best as a fussy gentle lady. Who was silk hiding the steel behind her every movement and someone whose honor he was sure he would need to protect for all his days, till she settled down at the very least.

Ignoring the fact he had failed in that, she was now wool hiding steel. They could see it there, because she had had to harden to survive this world and she loved her sons.

But Tavor would need to know, Tavor would need help, and with Harmem helping Dori well…Nori was the next best thing. While his craft was not the taking of others’ lives in the dark of the night, he was one who took his craft to taking _other_ things.

A slit throat or twenty wasn’t going to keep him up at night.

* * *

Nori scowled at the way Tavor, and those that had remained truly loyal to Tavor, had been cornered in the upper floor of the tavern. They had picked a good, defensible, spot, but the blood that stained the wood, and the bodies that were strewn across the floor told Nori of the losing battle.

Any more press against them and Tavor would either have to run (uprooting the entire Hidden Mountain and moving it out of the Blue Mountains to who knew where) or go down fighting (leaving the Hidden Mountain to fall to ruin). Nori didn’t hesitate to grab the nearest intruder and covered his mouth as he gave the sentry another smile across the throat that stretched ear to ear.

He let the body drop and moved on.

The next sentry was gone just as quickly, blood staining his fingers, across his palm, and soon he knew they would notice the dead. He didn’t hesitate to climb up, ignoring the threats of the leader…of…

Samur.

Nori bit back a snarl at that, though he remembered to tell Tavor he told him so, later. When they weren’t in danger.

Nori had always known Samur would be trouble. He had never been the best of thieves getting caught about as often as he got away clean, but as he fell under the shadow of the Hidden Mountain, Tavor had always bailed him out. Tavor had given Samur jobs farther away where none could mark him, and even sent him past people who would take pity on Samur and help him. There were not many, but there were some.

Tavor had done the same for Nori, but Nori wasn’t a rabid Warg who would turn and bite the hand that fed him, in some cases literally. He wasn’t a dog, either, but he had a concept of debts to be repaid.

Samur never did and he was a rabid Warg, not even having loyalty to those he should.

Rabid Wargs were _nasty_ , but that was neither here nor there, because Nori was slipping along the beams, suddenly thankful Tavor had kept them, even though Nori had thought it was stupid.

He didn’t think it was so stupid now that he could use it to move above them. Eyeing the group, he resisted the urge to let out a groan, even as he maneuvered above Samur, who was practically _oozing_ smugness, believing he had won. With a shift of his bodyweight, he dropped down on Samur, who was cut off mid-word (something about how if Tavor didn’t just slip out now, the boys would die, and really, Nori might just have to keep him alive to see what _Dori_ would do to him when he told her about _that_ threat) by Nori landing on him. His knife is already flashing and Nori just stabs him through his throat as he turns, turning Samur into a shield as an ax is driven into Samur’s shoulder, catching on the collar bone. “You should _really_ take better care of your axes,” Nori stated with a vicious grin, even as he ripped his blade from Samur’s neck and kicked the drowning in his own blood Dwarf into his compatriots as he climbed back up onto the rafter.

The Dwarves below twisted to follow, turning their back on the door.

The bloodbath that followed Nori watched from above with a grin as Tavor turned the tide, for betrayers would _not_ be tolerated in the Hidden Mountain.

* * *

“You know, I just finished getting the blood out from the _last_ time I cleaned house,” Tavor complained as Tavor’s people began to clean out the bodies and scrub away the blood.

“Yeah. On the bright side, you can keep the kitchens and common room open for business, unlike last time,” Nori answered from above and Tavor fixed him with a flat look.

“Hey, I ran from helping Dori find her boys to here for you and killed a lot of people. You know how I am about killing. That’s Harmem’s craft, not mine,” Nori stated and Tavor frowned, before he glanced, even as Nori shrugged.

“The moment I realized you were in trouble, I left Dori in Harmem’s capable hands and ran here. She’ll forgive me,” Nori responded lightly.

Tavor raised an eyebrow, even as one of his cleaners urged him to lift his feet, one on a time, to get some absorbent cloth under his boots. “She’s forgiven me for worse things,” Nori murmured softly, even as he relaxed against his beam.

He missed Tavor snorting, but he did not miss the Head of the Hidden Mountain’s reply of, “One day, she won’t.”

Nori ignored him, as he always did when Tavor said some truth he did not particularly did not want to hear.


	45. Crossing the Gap (Mention of Violence, Mention of Future Death)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that it is short, but this is just a quick bridging chapter before fun times with Harmem and Nori begin, followed by things, and a timeskip.
> 
> A large timeskip.

“This place is a mess,” Dori stated as she walked into the tavern’s decimated main room, carrying Lyer easily in her arms.

Harmem followed her practically on her heels, cradling a sleeping Ori to his chest, and Tavor, sitting at the only untouched table, glanced up at them. “We had our own sort of trouble while you were hunting kidnappers. Did you leave any alive?” Tavor questioned.

“They were alive when I left, but they won’t be moving anytime soon, if at all,” Dori answered with a small shrug, dropping her cat-of-nine-tails styled mace next to the nearest standing table and carefully settling Lyer onto the surface.

He twitched and clung to her even as she carefully began to feel along his back, humming soothingly every time he let out a sound of pain. “Broken ribs. They do anything else? Do I have to go back and remove more limbs?” she questioned lightly and Lyer shook his head.

“Just blunt beatings, Amad, promise,” he answered and she snorted, even as she carefully picked the mace back up, settling it at her waist before she focused back on Lyer.

“Just blunt beatings my foot,” Dori muttered softly as she carefully scooped him back up into her arms, supporting him easily.

“I’d help you to clean up, Tavor, but I have two sons to look after,” she explained and Tavor nodded even as he rubbed his forehead.

“It’s all right. You can’t help with the cleanup I need to do anyway,” Tavor answered, his eyes flickering to Harmem, which caused Dori to sigh.

“Nori, get down here and carry Ori so Harmem can go kill people instead of walking me home,” she demanded and there was a soft sound, like a body doing a controlled fall and Nori walked up.

“Why do I let you order me around?” Nori asked as he carefully lifted Ori out of Harmem’s arms.

“Because I feed you and don’t throw you out on your ear when you are unhelpful in anyway, like bringing guards to my door when I am heavily pregnant,” Dori responded simply and headed for the door, Nori at her heels.

“Good night, Tavor. Good night, Harmem. Hope the cleanup is thorough,” she added and the pair slipped back out into the night.

* * *

“Must you be so obvious?” Nori asked.

“Shut. Up, Nadad,” Dori retorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my headcanon for this verse, Dwarves come of age at 80.
> 
> So my ages are a bit off, because I've got to figure out at what age are they equivalent where.
> 
> But.....
> 
> Birth to 5 years old, everyone is the same across the board  
> I know at 20, Elves still look 7 years old and at 50 they are basically teenagers, and at 100, they are of age.
> 
> But I don't know what that will mean for Dwarves.


	46. Moving (This has Death)

"Just because I agreed to move into the house you think is so perfect for me and my own, Tavor, doesn't mean that you and the rest of the Hidden Mountain get to buy me all new furniture to go along with it!" Amad snapped and Ori looked up from where he was sitting on Bofur's lap, playing with a toy Bofur said his cousin had invented, while Tavor smiled down a bit at Amad.

"Now, Dori, you can’t deny we’ve been looking for a reason to give back what you’ve given us,” Tavor answered as he gently placed his hands on Amad’s upper arms, prompting Amad to settle her hands on her hips.

Ori resisted the urge to giggle, though he laughed as Bofur dropped his hat onto his head, the size causing it to fall over his eyes. “Besides, who said we _bought_ it?” a member of the Hidden Mountain, who Ori thought was Sandur, stated as Ori pushed the hat off his eyes.

Ori giggled when Amad grabbed said thief by the back of his jacket and hauled him up. “If you put _stolen goods_ into my home, I will throw you out this door,” she warned and Ori beamed, even as Bofur carefully hitched him up to settle him against Bofur’s torso.

“Not stolen, not stolen,” Sandur babbled and Amad set him back on the ground.

“Good. And keep it down! Lyer is _finally_ sleeping after being _unable_ to sleep right above your heads!” she responded before she turned on Tavor, who took a small step back from her.

“You try this again, they will never know you are gone, are we clear?” she demanded.

“Clear as crystal,” Tavor promised and Amad smiled before she pat his arm, turning back to watch the Dwarves of the Hidden Mountain put together their new home.

* * *

Harmem sighed as he dropped the dead body and rolled his head, careful not to touch anything with the gloved portion of his hands. “Why are these morons always the ones who are the messiest?” he muttered as he shook his booted foot to send blood flicking across the floor.

“I have no idea Harmem, but _wow_ , that is messy,” Nori stated from above and Harmem ignored him, wiping off his killing knife on the Dwarf’s tunic before he put it away.

“So, how badly did Tavor ream you out for hiding your older sister and your sister-son from him?” Harmem asked as pulled out the knife he used for shaving as he crouched down to begin removing the beard and head hair.

“About an hour. Eventually he understood. I guess…Dori wasn’t scared anymore,” Nori responded as Harmem carefully began to remove the Dwarf’s beard, being careful not to catch any skin.

“You mean you weren’t afraid anymore,” Harmem corrected as he finished, stuffing the beard and head hair, beads and all, into a chest that could fit in one hand, locking it tight.

“This an exact replica?” Harmem inquired as he tossed it up and he knew Nori caught it when the thief hummed.

“Perfect. Right weight too. And fine, _I_ wasn’t frightened anymore. Maybe because she’s got a bunch of people ready and willing to rip people limb from limb for her,” Nori responded.

Harmem chuckled a bit. “Maybe because she’s got an assassin willing to slit a throat ear to ear for her,” Nori stated even as he switched out the small chest holding the dead Dwarf’s beard and head hair with the one on the vanity.

Harmem froze, halfway between a crouch and standing before he finished standing up fully. “Well, that’s the third one down. You think Dwalin has noticed a pattern yet?” Harmem inquired and Nori snorted a bit.

“Dwalin always notices. He’s probably frothing at the mouth over the fact such _upstanding_ people are dead,” Nori responded and Harmem hummed as he shrugged lazily, replacing his shaving knife.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that you completely ignored my statement. I won’t let you go that easily on it,” Nori stated as he moved over to the window and Harmem followed.

“I didn’t think you would,” Harmem responded as with a twist and a shift of his body, Harmem was out the window, following Nori through the shadows.

* * *

“Lord Alviss is dead,” Balin reported as he folded his hands on his desk and Dwalin let out an enraged sound as he kicked at the air.

“How is it happening?” Dwalin demanded as he turned on Balin, who shrugged mildly in response.

“I do not know. But…there has been one thing connecting them,” Balin stated as he carefully shuffled the paperwork.

“What could possibly connect Lord Bringher, Lord Sarur, and Lord Alviss?” Dwalin demanded.

“All three had small chests that went to Lady Lofnheid in their wills,” Balin answered and Dwalin stared at Balin.

“Lady Lofnheid? She is the most upstanding member of the Blue Mountains!” Dwalin exclaimed as he turned on Balin.

“And yet she’s the only connection,” Balin responded, even as he slowly stood up.

“Dwalin, even if it were for no other reason, we need to go to her to protect her. She may not be involved, but I highly doubt it,” Balin stated as he walked towards his brother and Dwalin snarled.

“To protect her, yes. To arrest her, no,” Dwalin responded before he stormed out of the room and Balin sighed, carefully making sure to cover the files involving Lady Lofnheid with some minor thieving corps before he followed his younger brother out of the room.

* * *

Harmem sighed as he exhaled the smoke from his pipe through his nose, listening to the rampage of Dwalin. He had not told Nori of the last order, knowing how the thief would feel about cutting the head of _this_ “snake” off. That Nori would be squeamish over the idea of a female Dwarf dying by Harmem’s hand and Harmem might have been squeamish, except _Lady_ Lofnheid wasn’t even deserving of the title, let alone the honor.

He had nearly blanched at some of the things she had ordered, such as the deaths of the dwaflings of those who opposed her, and the vows of loyalty she extracted from her ‘followers.’ She ruled through fear and terror and so long as her ‘followers’ obeyed her word utterly and completely, she couldn’t care less about them, shrugging off death tolls as if they were nothing.

She had been willing to wage an entire underground war and Harmem had wished she was a poor mother on top of it, but no she wasn’t. She was a wonderful mother, sweet and generous towards the poor. She was loved.

And it wasn't entirely…false.

That made Harmem’s stomach curdle. The fact that while she was vicious, she was honest too.

But…well…

She was a threat to Dori, in the end.

And Harmem couldn't let that pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lady Lofnheid was originally male, but many of the thoughts were still the same.
> 
> However, when the name was changed from "Joe" (which is my filler name) to "Lofnheid" I had to change all the genders. And then Harmem got violent and introspective.
> 
> Also, next chapter....TIME SKIP!!!


	47. The Time Skip Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time Skip of 30 Years (Enjoy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a major timeskip! And…talk about Dwarf Aging that is No Way Canon and is mostly me wanting things to be more balanced for my sanity, if you want to read it in the end notes.
> 
> For help with Timeline Purposes, this chapter takes place in T.A. 2913, a year after the Fell Winter, and it is 28 years before the Quest for Erebor and about 30 years after the last chapter.
> 
> Yeah, a huge jump.
> 
> http://mommydoriseries.tumblr.com/post/110027441536/the-meta-and-folding-of-timeline-sorta
> 
> That is the meta for this.

Ori bent over the paper as he carefully wrote his observations of the day, in Westron, not even twitching as two familiar forms dropped down on either side of him. "Little Ori!" Kíli greeted from his left.

"I am only fifteen years younger than you," Ori muttered as he continued to write.

"That doesn't change the fact you're little," Gimli grumbled from his right and Ori sighed.

"And I'm a _year_ older than you," Ori grumbled as he carefully finished the description of the jeweler from a settlement at the foot of the mountain and started on the description of the ponies he had.

"And I'm the eldest," Fíli stated from the other side of Kíli, who was looking at the pages of Ori’s almost filled journal.

"Wow, this is....really neat Ori," Kíli stated and Ori glanced over at Kíli.

"Thank you," Ori answered and focused back on his description.

"Wasn't that jeweler here this morning?" Gimli asked, and Ori could feel some more pressure on his left arm as Fíli leaned on Kíli to look at his writing.

“Ori, is that a _drawing_ of some the wares he had?” Fíli asked and Ori nodded as he continued to describe the ponies.

“This…do you think your Craft Calling is this?” Kíli asked and Gimli perked up at that.

“I’ve got a Craft Calling!” Gimli exclaimed and Ori hesitated, tilting his head slightly before he nodded.

“Amad doesn’t. Well, not really,” Ori mumbled and Fíli made a sound.

“Neither does my Adad, or Uncle, to my knowledge, but they both have the natural ability to Craft, they just don’t have a Calling for one,” Kíli supplied.

“Yeah. Amad’s a jeweler, Gimli has it in silversmith,” Fíli stated and Ori looked over at him.

The blond prince grinned. “Music,” he answered.

“Cousin Balin has it in Scribe too, and he’s been huffing about having to take on an apprentice soon,” Kíli added and Fíli didn’t hesitate to smack him upside the head, even as Ori went back to describing the ponies.

“Next year,” Ori muttered and he heard the sound of a hand contacting head, followed by Kíli letting out a little whine of pain.

“Oi, off my brother!” Lyer barked and both Fíli and Kíli pulled back while Gimli just glared up at Lyer, whose brown hair was braided into a bun at the base of his skull, his beard braided out of the way, and dust covering him as well as the miner’s pick over his shoulder.

“Time to go home?” Ori questioned and Lyer nodded and Ori, carefully, capped his ink and put it into his satchel before he tucked his quill behind his ear and, stood up, his journal still open.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Ori called over his shoulder, which had the princes grinning and waving, while Gimli seemed to huff and grumble.

Then again, Gimli _always_ huffed and grumbled.

* * *

Dori sighed as she continued to spin yarn on her drop spindle, the soft wool easily slipping through her soft gloves. At the window was a loom, a half-finished tapestry on it, which Dori sighed over, feeling…worn down.

It was truly a beautiful piece.

“We’re home Amad!” Lyer shouted and Dori looked away from the tapestry.

“In the weaving room!” she answered, and she watched as Ori ran into the small room, followed by Lyer, who looked like he had come right out of a mine, though he stayed in the doorway.

“Amad, there was a jeweler in the Open Markets today!” Ori exclaimed and Dori made an approving sound as she carefully set her work to the side, once she was sure it wouldn’t unravel, and took the journal from his hands.

She opened it and notes she’ll need to get another one, wondering how she’ll pull the money together. While the house is being leased at far below value from Tavor, that doesn’t change the fact she needs money from other sources.

She still hasn’t made up her Blacksmith Guild fees, and until she does, she can’t sign up with another Guild involving her wool crafts and even if Tavor got quite excited about black market wool crafts, she wasn’t going to _provide_ them unless she had no choice.

She knew how hard it was, as a Guild member, to compete against the lower prices, but equal quality, to know that down the lane someone had rented a forge and paid a portion to the Guild for blacksmithing without being part of the Guild, and taking customers down the way.

That no maker’s mark would adorn them, but they would be good, if not better, than what Dori could forge.

“These are wonderful,” she stated and smiled at Ori as she passed the journal back over to him.

“Now, go wash up for dinner,” she ordered and he nodded before he took off and Dori looked up at Lyer, who ruffled Ori’s hair as he passed, ignoring the protest as Ori ran past him.

“How did work in the mines go?” Dori asked.

“Well enough. Its closing,” Lyer answered and Dori sighed before she grabbed him and hauled him into the room.

“Lyer, your fingers are fidgeting. Finish it,” Dori ordered.

“I’m dusty,” he mumbled, even as he began to work on the loom.

Dori smiled a bit and went back to spinning the yarn, mentally calculating the apprenticeship price to get Lyer into the Weaver’s Guild.

They’d accept a late apprenticeship for one with a Craft Calling.

* * *

Dori snorted a bit inelegantly as she brushed her hair back from her face and shot Suldir a look. “I’m afraid I must turn down your most gracious proposal of marriage,” Dori responded cheerfully and Suldir sighed softly.

“Alas, dear lady, you break my heart,” she stated.

“I’ll break more than that if you don’t get your hand off my rear,” Dori responded and she pulled her hand back.

“Apologies,” Sildur stated.

“Accepted,” Dori answered and headed over the counter, noticing how Tavor seemed to be a bit nervous.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ve got members of the Underwater Basket Weaving Guild coming in tomorrow to stay for the week. I don’t have their rooms ready,” he answered.

“Why do you have members of an underwater basket weaving guild coming to stay and why are they coming to stay here?” Dori questioned.

“Because Hobbits have a dark sense of humor,” Tavor grumbled and Dori felt it click and sighed.

“I’ll clean out the round doored rooms after closing tonight,” Dori offered and Tavor reached over, tapping his forehead to hers.

“You’re a blessing from Mahal, Mother Dori,” he stated.

“Tavor, you’ll make me blush,” Dori stated as she picked up the tray of mugs and swept across the tavern floor to the group in the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time, I am changing the Of Age from 80 to 83, but this is for my sanity so I can figure out equivalent ages. I know I said back in Chapter 45 that I headcanon 80, but when I tried to get equivalency, I couldn’t do it and make it fit, so I just fiddled with it till I _could_ make it fit and it basically boiled down to one simple face; I can have 6 years = 1 year after the first five years this way.
> 
> This makes the ending of _The Hobbit_ sadder.
> 
> As mentioned in the beginning chapter’s notes, this chapter takes place in T.A. 2913.
> 
> Which means Fíli is 54, Kíli is 49, Ori is 35, and Gimli is 34.
> 
> Equivalent ages for them are 13, 12, 10, and 9 (almost 10).


End file.
